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They pulled weeds from the flower- beds 





THE 


MILLERS AT PENCROFT 


BY 

Clara Dillingham Pierson 

T ( 

AUTHOR OF “three LITTLE MILLERS,” “ AMONG THE MEADOW 
PEOPLE,” ETC. 



NEW YORK 

E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 

31 West Twenty-third Street 


LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

NOV 17 1906 

Copyricht Entry 

/ •) . / V 4 

CLASS (X. XXc., No. 

/ io 0 i 

COPY B. 


Copyright, 1906 

BY 

E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 


Published, September, 1906 


Ube ftnicberbocbcr preee, 'new Hork 


CONTENTS 


PAGB 


Valentines 





1 

Lucinda Comes to Visit . 





i8 

A Heavy Snow-storm 





31 

House Cleaning 





52 

An Invitation . 





70 

The Dayin Longfield 





86 

Earning Money 





105 

Another Fourth of July . 





120 

Making Ready for a Journey 





131 

Starting North 





145 

The Steamer and the Cottage 





159 

Pencroft 





173 

New Playmates 





190 

The Show 





205 

Mushrooms 





226 

An Invitation to Tea 





243 

The Pow-wow 





261 



ILLUSTRATIONS 


Taking around the Valentines 

Her Mother didn’t Notice, but she just Stuffed 

They Pulled Weeds from the Flower Beds 

Frontispiece 

He Had a Forlorn Afternoon .... 

Ralph and the Kittens 

Mrs. Miller Dressed Helen .... 


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1 


I 



THE MILLERS AT PENCROFT 


CHAPTER 1 

VALENTINES 

IT was the thirteenth of February and 
1 stormy. The three little Millers were 
seated around the grate in the sitting-room, 
their six moccasined feet on the fender, and 
the wet shoes which they had just removed 
placed around the register to dry. It was a 
stormy day, and there had been nobody 
ready to welcome them when they came 
in. Aurelia was visiting her sister, and Mrs. 
Miller had been called away by the sudden 
sickness of a friend. They had found the 
house open and a note telling them to ex- 
change wet clothing for dry, and then look 


2 


The Millers at Pencroft 


in the kitchen for three hot baked apples — 
their stormy-day lunch. Now the apples 
were eaten and the children had joined 
Nebuchadnezzar beside the fire. 

“ 1 tell you what,” said Ralph, suddenly. 
“Let’s do a whole lot of valentines for 
to-morrow.” 

“ All right, sir ! ” responded Jack. 

“How can you do them?” asked Helen. 
“1 fought you just bought them down- 
town.” 

“You do buy some kinds,” said jack, 
“but our mother says she likes it better for 
folks to make them. She says they always 
used to just write them, sort of like letters. 
She has some that used to belong to her 
grandmother. They wrote them in poetry 
usurally. Two of them had little bits of 
pictures at the top of the first page, but 
Mother said that the poetry was the really 
Mwportant part, though.” 

“ What kind of pictures did they have ? ” 
asked Helen. 

“Oh, one of them had two hearts right 


Valentines 


3 


tight up together and an arrow stuck 
through ’em, and the other had just a little 
stupid shooting.” 

“ Pardon me,” said Ralph, “you mean a 
cupid.” 

“ What ’s the difference? I ’d like to know,” 
retorted Jack, “ You Just tell, if you know.” 

“Well,” replied Ralph, speaking very 
slowly, and trying to think it out for himself. 
“ A stupid is somebody that does n’t know 
very much — can’t get his lessons and all 
that, but a cupid is a fat little boy that flies 
around at this time of year shooting off his 
bow and arrow at folks, and he doesn’t 
wear any clothes but a kind of loose ribbon 
— not any trousers or sweater or arctics or 
things.” 

“ Humph 1 ” snorted jack. “ I don’t see 
very much difference from what you say. 
Any boy that flies around this sort of 
weather with just a ribbon on can’t know 
very much. He ’d better trade off his bow 
and arrow for some clothes, I think ! ” 

“Well,” said Ralph, still sweet, but sure 


4 The Millers at Pencroft 

that he was right, “ I know there is a dif- 
ference even if I don’t know enough to tell 
what it is. I ’m going to write a poetry 
valentine for Mother first, because she said 
she liked that kind best.” 

“1 will too,” said jack, “and then after- 
ward 1 ’m going to write some for other 
people.” 

“1 don’t think that’ll be very much fun 
for me,” said Helen dolefully. “All 1 can 
write is just ‘ Helen Miller.’” 

“1 tell you, little sister,” said Ralph. 
“You take some of our letter paper and 
paste sweet little pictures on it, and write 
your name under. I know where there is 
some red wrapping paper that will cut up 
into fine hearts, and there are lots of pic- 
tures in these old magazines Mother said we 
might have. Perhaps you can find some 
cupids in them.” 

After that the sitting-room was a peaceful 
and busy place, although it was far from 
orderly. One result of seeing their mother 
so much at her desk was to make the boys 


Valentines 


5 


fond of writing. They were forever sending 
letters to their friends, or copying short 
stories which interested them. Indeed, 
jack often returned from school with what he 
called “love-letters” for Mrs. Miller, which 
he had written after his lessons were done, 
and stuffed into his pocket for her. They 
had even tried their hands at poetry before, 
so the valentines did not seem hard to 
write. 

“How do you spell ‘ain’t?’” asked 
Ralph, after a while. 

“1 don’t spell it,” replied Jack. “1 say 
isn’t, i-s-e-n-t.” 

“But that doesn’t rhyme,” said Ralph. 
“ 1 want something to rhyme with paint 
and I can’t think of anything but ain’t. 1 ’ll 
have to use it and guess how to spell it. 
It ’s queer you never find it printed when 
you hear it so much.” 

There was a long silence, broken only by 
the sound of Helen’s scissors, and the noise 
which jack made in rubbing out a mistake. 
He was writing with a pencil. 


6 


The Millers at Pencroft 


Then Ralph spoke: “Now I’ve got it 
done,” said he, “1 ’ll read it to you. 

“The kind of valentine this ant 
Is made with lots of ribbons and paint 
But I havent any, and so I think 
I ’ll tell you I love you in thomas’s ink.’* 

“ Let ’s see how you spelled it,” said jack. 
“ Oh Ralph, that ’s just a-n-t, ant 1 It 
be that. That ’s Just an inseck.” 

“ 1 don’t believe that is right myself,” ad- 
mitted Ralph, “but I tried it different ways 
on another paper with other letters in it, and 
it did n’t look right anyhow 1 fixed it. So I 
Just put in the letters 1 knew had to be there, 
and then Mother can fix the rest to suit 
herself.” 

“ 1 guess she ’ll understand,” said jack 
comfortingly, “and she is fond of insecks, 
but when 1 don’t feel sure about a word 1 
always put in all the letters 1 can, so it won’t 
seem stingy.” 

“ Let ’s hear yours,” said Ralph. 

“Mine is different-looking,” remarked 


Valentines 


7 


Jack. I never can make the lines of my 
poetry stick out just as far as each other. 

**\ love you, dearie Mother, 

And I wanted you to know 

That I think you ’re a regguler valentine 

And I write to tell you so.” 

“Oh, that ’sgood, Jack,” exclaimed Ralph. 
“That’s a dandy! There’s only one line 
sticks out too far in that poem, and if you 
write it over you can do that line finer and 
make it all right.” 

“ Look at my balluntine,” said Helen. “ 1 
found a whole lot of cupids in the back part 
of this mag’zine.” She waved a sheet of 
note-paper before them. Pasted on the first 
page was a picture of a fat baby, almost 
naked, and with something in his hand 
which had a label — “Mellin’s Food” on it. 
Under this she had written “ Helen Miller” 
with the stumpy red pencil which Sallie 
James had given her the week before. The 
boys praised the valentine and put it in an 
envelope for her. Then they all went to 


8 


The Millers at Pencroft 


work on others, and when Mrs. Miller came 
hurrying home to get supper they had quite 
a little pack of envelopes all sealed and ad- 
dressed for the next day, with a home-made 
valentine in each. 

“ I must not ask what you have been do- 
ing ? ” said Mrs. Miller, after she had been 
warned by three voices at once. “Now 
what can it be ? 1 ’m sure it is not any mis- 
chief that you would be ashamed to have 
me find out, because my children don’t do 
that sort of thing. 1 think it must be a sur- 
prise. Dear me ! How long must 1 wait 
before you tell me ? ” 

“just till to-morrow,” said Ralph, and he 
would have said more, but Jack and Helen 
waved their hands wildly and said “ Sh ! ” 
in a way that was almost fierce. 

“You don’t know now, do you ?” asked 
Helen. “ You have n’t guessed, have you ? ” 
“ Guessed about to-morrow ? ” answered 
Mrs. Miller with a puzzled look. “Why, 
Christmas is past and my birthday is several 
weeks ahead. How could 1 possibly guess 


Valentines 


9 


anything about to-morrow? Well, I am 
going into the kitchen to get supper. It is 
always easier to keep patient when one is 
busy, you know, and I leave you to put the 
front of the house in order before Father 
comes. It would be a good plan to have his 
slippers warming by the fire, and to open 
the outer door when you hear him coming. 
It is such a comfort to a tired, cold man to 
have pleasant and helpful children welcome, 
him home.” 

The little Millers did their part well, and 
although they were almost bursting with 
their secret, they never said a word about 
it before their father. It is true that Jack 
cleared his throat every now and then and 
went through the motions of writing when 
he had made the other children look at him, 
but that was all, and they went to bed sure 
that the morning would bring them a chance 
for a genuine surprise. 

The boys slept in a room over that of 
their father and mother, and Mr. Miller 
laughed when he heard their alarm clock go 


lO 


The Millers at Pencroft 


off the next morning, for before its peal was 
half finished there were two loud thumps 
on the floor above his head and a wild 
scramble which told of haste to begin dress- 
ing. “Something is going to happen, 
Mother,” he said. “Those boys would 
never turn out so promptly unless they had 
something of importance on hand. 1 think 
we might better keep our eyes open.” 

“No, indeed,” said his wife. “1 think 
we might better keep them half shut. There 
is to be some wonderful surprise to-day, and 
you know it spoils all the fun to have secrets 
guessed beforehand.” 

Mr. Miller’s eyes twinkled, and he opened 
a drawer in his dresser and looked in, quite 
as though he had a secret of his own. Mrs. 
Miller hurried off to the kitchen and he 
awakened Helen and helped her dress. 

It was remarkable how anxious the chil- 
dren were to be helpful that morning. They 
quite insisted on setting the table and bring- 
ing in the food when it was ready. Mr. Miller, 
too, was in the dining-room before break- 


Valentines 


II 

fast was called. He was there alone for a 
minute and it happened in this way : the 
children were all there when the door-bell 
rang. In a minute it rang again, and Mrs. 
Miller asked them to go to the door, so they 
rushed out into the hall only to find no- 
body there. When they returned, their 
father stood looking out of the dining-room 
window. 

“1 believe our storm is over,” said he. 
“ It will be a fine day for little boys and 
girls.” 

“Breakfast is ready,” said Mrs. Miller. 
“ Let us sit down quickly while everything 
is hot.” 

The chairs were drawn back at the same 
minute, and then all the children squealed 
with delight. Ralph, Jack, and Helen each 
found a big valentine envelope on the chair 
seat. You know the kind of envelope, 
do you not ? It has such interesting little 
dots and ridges pressed into the paper, 
making a pretty pattern around the plain 
place in the middle, where the address is 


12 


The Millers at Pencroft 


written. Inside the children found big lace- 
paper valentines with bright little pictures, 
and on the second leaf were verses just 
brimful of sweetness, all about “ dart” and 
“heart” and “kiss” and “bliss.” Oh, 
surely you know the kind of valentine, too. 

And when these had all been looked over 
and admired. Father and Mother lifted and 
unfolded their napkins, and out tumbled 
one, two, three valentines from each ! First 
Father insisted that he had more than 
Mother, and then Mother insisted that she 
had more than Father, and when they 
finally got over their surprise enough to 
count, it was discovered that each had 
exactly three. Of course they had to be 
read aloud, and three of them you already 
know about. 

“ You pronounced it the way 1 meant it,” 
said Ralph, as Mrs. Miller finished reading 
his, “ but I know ‘ ain’t ’ is spelled wrong. 1 
won’t mind if you fix it.” 

“ We will fix it together after breakfast,” 
remarked Mrs. Miller. “ I will tell you how. 


Valentines 


13 


but I wish you to do the writing, because 1 
expect to keep these valentines always, and 
1 want them to be all my children’s work. 
Now let us hear Father read his.” 

“ This must be from Helen, 1 think,” said 
Mr. Miller. “Just look at these hearts! 
That big one must stand for mine, and the 
small one for my little girl’s. And Mother, 
do you see how plainly she has written her 
name ? I call that a very fine valentine.” 

“Which are you going to take next?” 
asked Ralph. 

“This one, 1 think,” replied his father, 
unfolding a sheet of letter paper with great 
care. “ What is this ? 

Dear Father, be my valentine, 

I don’t know exactly what that is. 

But I want you to be mine. 

I send you a hug and a kiss. 

“ I believe jack wrote that. Of course 1 ’ll 
be your valentine. It means that 1 will love 
you as dearly as you love me. ” 

“ Do you think the pome part of it sounds 


14 The Millers at Pencroft 

all right ? ” asked Jack eagerly. “ Ralph 
said he thought it was sort of lumpy.” 

“ Lumpy ? ” said Mr. Miller. “ Lumpy ? 
Well, now, honestly 1 believe it is just a little 
bit lumpy, but 1 don’t mind that a bit because 
it is so love-y. Besides, 1 have read a good 
many other poems that were lumpy.” 

“ Now read mine,” said Ralph, wrig- 
gling with excitement. “ 1 tried to make 
mine funny.” 

I have the nicest father, 

He never calls me a bother, 

And lots of other fellow’s fathers do; 

They want girls for their valentine. 

But I want you and Mother for mine. 

And I guess I ’ll have you too.” 

“ Good for Ralph ! ” said Mr. Miller. “ 1 
think he can have us both. What do you 
think, Mother?” 

“ 1 am sure of it, but now we must eat 
our breakfast, or it will be quite cold before 
we begin.” 

Breakfast was half eaten when Jack sud- 
denly paused with his fork half way to his 


Valentines 


15 


mouth. “ Why ! ” he said, “ Father and 
Mother did n’t give any valentines to each 
other ! After they are all married and every- 
thing, too, so that they have to love each 
other. I think they ought to.” 

“ Mine is n’t ready yet,” said Mrs. Miller. 
“You know 1 was called away yesterday to 
help in a sick room. Mine will be ready at 
dinner-time, and it will be very sweet.” 

“Mine is ready now,” said Mr. Miller. 
“ But Mother was so afraid that breakfast 
would grow cold that 1 decided to give it to 
her afterward. It is in the sitting-room.” 

“ 1 tell you what / fink,” said Helen. “/ 
fink that we ’d better stop talking and just 
eat.” 

When they went into the sitting-room for 
the little prayer together, with which they 
always began the day, Mr. Miller handed 
his wife a large flat package on which he 
had written “To my Valentine.” 

Mrs. Miller opened it carefully and found 
a very beautiful large photograph of a famous 
painting, which showed angels in a great 


1 6 The Millers at Pencroft 

kitchen doing all sorts of the commonest 
tasks. “Just what 1 have always wanted,” 
she cried. “See, children, it means that 
even washing dishes is sweet and happy 
work if it is done with willing hands and 
loving hearts. Thank you. Father.” 

That was not all that happened on Valen- 
tine’s day. Oh dear, no! There were other 
valentines to be taken around and left at 
people’s doors, to surprise them when they 
answered the bell and found nobody there; 
and there were some oranges to be left 
for sick people after school — oranges with 
“ To my Valentine ” printed on them with a 
brush and India ink by Mother after she had 
the dishes washed. But the funniest thing 
of all was when Mother brought in the des- 
sert at dinner-time. She brought it in on 
the beautiful round silver salver that had 
belonged to her grandmother. It was a 
huge Washington pie — which is like a short- 
cake made with cake and red raspberry Jam, 
you know, with powdered sugar dusted 
over the top. 








^ ''tis 


Taking around the Valentines 







Valentines 


17 


It was Mr. Miller’s favorite dessert, but he 
had never had a pie so big as this. Besides, 
there were two big pink candy hearts lying 
on top and a card standing above them, 
held up on a pair of cleft wooden tooth- 
picks. This is what it said : “To my Valen- 
tine, from his Angel of the Kitchen.” 

Of course Mr. Miller could not eat all that 
pie alone, so the whole family helped him. 
He did eat the hearts, however. They had 
been laid on with the printed side down, 
but he picked them off and read both before 
eating them. 

“ What did they say. Father ? ” cried the 
children all together. 

“That is my secret,” he answered, smil- 
ing at his wife. “That is my secret, to 
keep locked in my own heart.” 

The children knew that he was making a 
little fun of them for being inquisitive, and 
took it in the right way, but Ralph evened 
things up by remarking “ It ’s your secret all 
right enough, but 1 should say you had it 
locked in your stomach 1 ” 


CHAPTER II 


LUCINDA COMES TO VISIT 

A urelia had been back for at least ten 
days, and Mrs. Miller had reached the 
fifteenth chapter of the new book which she 
was writing, when something quite unexpec- 
ted happened. It was Wednesday morning, 
the children were all in school and Mrs. Miller 
sat at her desk in the sitting-room, thump- 
ing cheerfully away at the typewriter with 
sheets of the fifteenth chapter piled neatly by 
her side. The door into the hall was closed 
and a card hung on the outer knob. It was 
one which Jack had made her to use in times 
like these. He had copied it from a sign 
downtown and it read “No admittance ex- 
cept on Important Business.” 

She had just begun a new sentence when 
the knob turned softly and Aurelia entered. 

tS 


Lucinda Comes to Visit 


19 


Mrs. Miller did not turn her head. She did 
not even stop her writing. “Just wait a 
minute, Aurelia,” she said, as she ran the 
typewriter carriage back to begin a new 
line. Clickety-clickety-click. “There! ’’she 
added. “ 1 wanted to get that safely down 
before you told me anything startling. 1 lost 
more than half a chapter of a good well- 
planned story when Ralph told me about 
jack’s being on Sprague’s Lake. What is it 
now ? ” 

“ Well,” said Aurelia, sitting on the edge of 
the nearest chair and rolling her bare arms in 
her kitchen apron. “The man’s just came 
with your butter an’ eggs an ’ he says old 
Mrs. Shaw has been sent for to go to Ohio 
for some business or other an’ has to go Fri- 
day. He says his wife wanted to keep Lu- 
cindy, but their baby has gone an’ got the 
measles, land knows where, and so she can’t. 
1 know you ’re terrible drove, but 1 thought 
1 ought to speak to you about it.” 

“ 1 don’t understand, Aurelia,” said Mrs. 
Miller, who found it hard to change so sud- 


20 


The Millers at Pencroft 


denly from the story she was writing to such 
matters as butter and eggs and business in 
Ohio. 

“No, Idon’ts’pose you do,” said Aurelia, 
looking down at the floor. “ Fact is, 1 can’t 
seem to get out what 1 mean. 1 wondered 
if you ’n Mr. Miller ’d be willin’ for me to have 
Lucindy visit me here while her grandma ’s 
gone. She ’s a quiet little thing when you 
ask her to be, and 1 would n’t let her make 
you a mite of trouble. Days when the chil- 
dren are in school she ’d be tickled to death to 
just set still and read their books, if you ’d 
let her. 1 never saw such a child for books 
in my life.” 

“Come here? ’’asked Mrs. Miller, as she 
picked a loose paper from the floor. “Yes, 
certainly. Send word for her to drive in with 
Mrs. Shaw Friday and stop on her way to the 
station. When the grandmother returns she 
can stop for her. Is that all ? Close the door 
tightly as you go out, please. ” And then the 
typewriter began to click once more. 

The butter-and-eggs man carried the mes- 


Lucinda Comes to Visit 


21 


sage back to Mrs. Shaw, and the little Millers 
fairly counted the hours until Lucinda should 
come. She was to sleep with Aurelia, but 
during her waking hours she was to be with 
the children as much as possible, eating her 
meals with them, and going to visit each of 
their schoolrooms once during her stay, if 
she wished to do so. Mrs. Shaw was to take 
a late afternoon train, and the children ran 
every step of the way home from school 
Friday afternoon for fear they would not be 
there to welcome her when she came. 

It was half-past four when “Yon,” Mrs. 
Shaw’s Swedish hired man, drew up in 
front of the Miller house. Lucinda climbed 
out as nimbly as a squirrel, waved her hand 
to the children in the open doorway, and 
turned to help her grandmother as the old 
lady backed slowly out of the double cutter. 
Aurelia, who had been watching for them, 
hurried out with a shawl over her head. 
She kissed the old lady and shouted a sen- 
tence or two in her ear, and then hugged 
and kissed Lucinda. “ For the land’s sake,” 


22 


The Millers at Pencroft 


she said. “How you grow! Gettin’ fat 
too! Not much like the peaked little girl 
you once was. Well, well, we ’ll have a 
good visit, won’t we ? Now run in, while 
1 fetch your grandma along.” 

Mrs. Shaw stopped just long enough for 
a few words with Mrs. Miller, and then she 
gave Lucinda the key to the valise which 
Yon brought in, kissed her good-by, and 
then gave her a great many more directions 
as to behavior before kissing her again and 
for the last time. “ Take good care of your 
clothes,” she said, “and be sure to mind 
Aurelia. Sit real still in church and don’t 
forget your handkerchief. Write me a letter 
Monday morning, and don’t get in folks’s 
way. Be sure you keep your feet dry. 1 ’ll 
be back Thursday afternoon sure. Good- 
by.” 

Then she left and Aurelia carried the 
valise up to her own comfortable room, 
while the children took Lucinda off to their 
playroom. Most of the remaining time 
that day was given to showing her their 


Lucinda Comes to Visit 


23 


new playthings, and asking her what she 
received at Christmas. During the coldest 
weather they seldom had a chance to see 
Lucinda. At seven o’clock they all went to 
bed, and the visit began in earnest the next 
morning. 

At breakfast all were discussing the plans 
for the day. It was to be Lucinda’s one 
Saturday in town, and they wanted to make 
it as interesting as possible. 

“Tell us something very speshual to do, 
Father,” said Jack. “ We don’t want to do 
usural things when we have company.” 

“ Why not go to the Art Gallery ? ” said 
he. “You have not been there for a long 
time, and Mr. Peters has just finished hang- 
ing the pictures he bought when last in 
Europe. There are some new statues, 
too. I was talking with him yesterday, 
and he said that the gallery would be opened 
and warmed to-day for the first time since 
he added to the collection.” 

“Oh may we?” said Lucinda, her eyes 
blazing with excitement. 


24 


The Millers at Pencroft 


“Let’s!” cried the others in a happy 
chorus. 

“You may all go,” said Mrs. Miller. 
“ Helen may take her doll if she wishes, 
and when 1 go down-town to do my market- 
ing 1 will look in and see how you are 
getting along. Then if Helen wishes to 
go with me for a while she may.” 

Mr. Peters was the one very wealthy 
man in Winthrop. He had a beautiful 
home near the centre of town, and in the 
same lot and connected with it was a large 
building filled with paintings and statuary, 
which he bought on his frequent trips 
abroad. On Saturday this building was 
usually open to the public, and every now 
and then an excursion party came from 
some other town especially to visit the 
Peters Art Gallery. It was really a fine 
chance for Winthrop people, but some of 
them did not make the most of it, and 
Lucinda’s grandmother was one of these. 
Lucinda had looked and longed outside of 
the iron fence, and had gazed at the bronzes 


Lucinda Comes to Visit 


25 


in the yard until she could fairly see them 
with her eyes shut, yet she had never once 
been allowed to enter the door. 

At nine o’clock the children entered the 
first room of the four, having promised to 
be very careful in handling the catalogues 
and not to touch any of the works of art. 

“Mercy ! ” said Lucinda, as they stepped 
inside. “ What is that man doing to the 
other one ? ” 

“What? Where?” asked Ralph, who 
was ahead. Then he looked around and 
saw Lucinda gazing at a canvas which 
showed one dark and peculiar looking man 
bending over another who lay on the 
ground. 

“ He ’s knocked him down and killed him 
or something,” said Lucinda, “and now 
he ’s taking a drink out of a bottle.” 

“O Lucinda,” cried Ralph, “that’s just 
what jack used to think about that man un- 
til we found out later from the catalogue. 
That ’s the good Samaritan, don’t you know. 
That’s one of our best Sunday afternoon 


26 


The Millers at Pencroft 


stories and sometimes we act it out in the 
playroom. Helen is the man that fell 
among thieves and was left by the wayside, 
and Jack and 1 take turns in being the other 
things. The trouble is that it takes us so 
long to be all the people that pass by on the 
other side that Helen gets to wiggling.” 

“ We ’ll try it again when we get home,” 
said jack, “and Lucinda can be the man 
who went down to Jericho. Helen can be 
the hotel-keeper who took care of him after 
the Samaritan found him.” 

“All right,” said Lucinda. “I think it 
would be lots of fun and 1 ’ll lie just the way 
he does in the picture. That bottle must 
hold the wine that was poured into his 
wounds. You tell me what the pictures are 
as soon as I see them, boys, and then 1 
won’t get so mixed up.” 

“ Oh, that ’s all right,” said Ralph politely. 
“ Everybody makes some mistakes, and that 
picture is very dark anyhow. We ’ll get 
some catalogues and you can find out for 
yourself.” 


Lucinda Comes to Visit 27 

So Ralph and Lucinda took catalogues 
from the table and looked up numbers for 
themselves and the others, but the little 
Millers knew most of the pictures by heart. 
They also knew something about the best 
artists whose pictures were there, and they 
passed on to their friend many of the stories 
their father and mother had told them. 

“ Which picture here do you s’pose cost 
the most ? ” asked Jack. 

“O jack, 1 was just going to ask Lu- 
cinda that myself,” said Ralph. 

“ Then you ask her, too,” suggested jack, 
always ready to be fair. 

“ All right,” said Ralph. “ Which do you 
suppose cost the most ? ” 

“ Pooh,” remarked Lucinda, “that’s easy. 
As though 1 did n’t know ! It ’s that one over 
there.” And she pointed to a very, very 
large picture in the farthest room, in which 
a very beautiful lady lay sleeping on a couch 
while a handsome man bent over her. 

“joke on you ! ” cried the little Millers all 
together. “There are lots of others here 


28 


The Millers at Pencroft 


that cost more than the ‘Sleeping Prin- 
cess.’ ” 

“I don’t believe it,” cried Lucinda. 
“You’re trying to fool me. There isn’t 
another here half as big as that one.” 

“ Yes,” remarked Jack with a very wise air. 
“1 used to think it was the bigness that 
cost, when 1 was small. But Father says 
there’s a good deal of difference between 
buying paintings and buying cotton cloth, 
and you can’t tell a single thing about the 
price by measuring them.” 

“ Humph ! ” said Ralph with the important 
air that he was rather too likely to put on. 
“That wasn’t a very expensive picture. 
Mr. Peters only paid about a thousand dollars 
for it.” 

“A thousand dollars!” gasped Lucinda. 
‘ ‘ A thousand dollars ! Why , that ’s as m uch 
as Grandma had to pay for her best barn ! ” 

“Come on,” said jack. “Let’s look at 
the new ones in this other room.” And then 
there was a busy turning of leaves in the 
catalogues, while jack read off the numbers 


Lucinda Comes to Visit 29 

of the pictures and Helen ran to and fro with 
her doll. 

“ Here ’s a dandy ! ” cried Jack. “ I b’lieve 
that is by the same lady that painted the 
cows in the front room. Look it up, Ralph 
— six hundred and twenty -seven.” 

“Yes sir, it is,” cried Ralph. “It must 
have cost a lot then, because Mother says 
she is very famous, indeed. We’ll get 
Mother to tell you about her when we get 
home. She just paints animals and she has 
a lovely home in France, where she keeps 
them. And sometimes she just borrows 
them a while from a circus or something.” 

“ Why can 1 not tell you about her now?” 
said a familiar voice behind them. There 
stood Mrs. Miller, who had entered so quietly 
that they had not heard a sound, and she 
seated herself on a settee, took Helen on her 
lap and told them first of Rosa Bonheur and 
then of other artists whose pictures hung on 
the walls around them. At last she looked 
at her watch, slid Helen to the floor and 
arose hastily. 


30 


The Millers at Pencroft 


“I must go,” she said, “1 must go, or 
there will be a very poor Sunday dinner for 
the Miller family. Do you want to come 
with me, Helen, while 1 do my marketing ? 
You do not? Very well, but be sure you all 
start home when the noon whistle blows.” 

“Oh,” said Lucinda, as the door closed 
behind Mrs. Miller, “ 1 think you have the 
sweetest mother, and she tells the most in- 
teresting true stories! 1 believe I’ll be a 
painter when 1 grow up, like Rosa Bonheur, 
and 1 ’ll paint Limpy’s picture from memory, 
because she will be dead then, and 1 will 
hang it up in my parlor in a gilt frame. But 
I will not cut my hair short, and 1 will never, 
never wear trousers.” 

“1 guess you ’ll have to,” said Ralph. 
“ Rosa Bonheur had to, 1 suppose, or else 
her folks would never have let her.” 

“1 don’t care,” said Lucinda, “1 won’t. 
1 ’ll wear pink velvet dresses with trains all 
the time except when 1 go to the barn to 
look at the animals, and then I shall wear 
blue velvet, made short.” 


CHAPTER III 


A HEAVY SNOW-STORM 

H OW the days flew when Lucinda was in 
the home ! Saturday morning in the 
Art Gallery and Saturday afternoon out-of- 
doors in the sunshine; Sunday at church and 
Sunday-school until dinner-time, and after 
that the books and amusements, which 
were kept for that day. And when Lucinda 
had enjoyed them all and the children 
were tired of quiet games, they went up 
to the playroom and played the story of 
the “ Good Samaritan ” as it was probably 
never played before or since, for Lucinda 
had a strong imagination, and improved 
upon and added to the things which the 
little Millers had done before. 

Then they were called down to pop corn 
over the grate-fire in the sitting-room, and 
31 


32 The Millers at Pencroft 

after that came the weekly supper of bread 
and milk and cheese, served this time by 
Lucinda and Jack. Mr. and Mrs. Miller were 
lunching with a friend that night, and Aurelia 
had the children all to herself. 

“What ’s this printing on the dishes?” 
asked Lucinda, as she took the big pitcher 
and the bowls from jack to carry into the 
dining-room. 

“Why don’t you read it and see?” said 
jack. 

‘ ‘ 1 can’t, ” replied Lucinda. ‘ ‘ Some of the 
words don’t seem to spell anything at all.” 

“Oh, that ’s because it is Scotch-y,” said 
jack. “ 1 ’ll tell you what it means. It is : 

‘ Some have meat that cannot eat, 

And some have none that want it; 

But we have meat and we can eat, 

And so the Lord be thanked.’ 

“ Mother bought those dishes in Chicago 
because she liked that verse so. Mr. Burns 
wrote it, you know, and he was very poor. 
He was a Scotchman, Mother says, and peo- 


A Heavy Snow-Storm 33 

pie did n’t find out how clever he was until 
after he died. She got those speshually for 
our bread and milk Sunday nights.” 

“Well,” said Lucinda, “1 like the dishes 
and 1 like the poetry all right if it isn’t 
spelled well, but 1 don’t see why they print 
all about meat on bread and milk dishes. 
You couldn’t eat meat out of those bowls, 
if you tried.” 

“Mother says that ‘meat’ there means 
any kind of food, just as sometimes ‘bread ’ 
in the Bible means any kind of food,” said 
jack, “ and Mother always knows.” 

Then they called the others out to the 
dining-room. Lucinda kept on thinking 
about the queer verse on her bowl. “It’s 
the first time 1 ever saw printing on dishes,” 
she said, “except just the A. B. C.’s on the 
plate 1 had when 1 was a baby. Have you 
ever been just so hungry it seemed as 
though you ’d die, and not had anything to 
eat ? ” 

“’Course not,” said Helen. “When 1 
get so hungry 1 tell Mother or Aurelia, and 


34 The Millers at Pencroft 

then if it ’s ’tween meals they give me an 
apple or some plain bread.” 

“That’s the way we do at home,” said 
Ralph, “ but when we boys go for polliwogs 
or mud-turtles we get dreadfully hungry and 
have to just stand it until we get back here. 
Aurelia, were you ever hungry and could n’t 
get enough to eat ? ” 

“Was 1 ever? My, yes! I've been 
hungry lots of times an’ did n’t know when 
1 ’d get a bite. That was when 1 was a little 
girl an’ my mother had all she could do to 
take care of my sister an’ me. She would n’t 
let folks know how poor we was after my 
father died, for fear they ’d take her children 
away from her. She used to say if we could 
just be brave that one winter she was sure 
that we could have enough to eat after that. 
We did, too, but there was lots of nights 
we did n’t have any supper, an ’ sometimes 
when we did get one it was just cracker- 
dust that our mother got cheap from the 
grocer when he cleaned out the bottom of 
his barrels. He thought she got it for 


A Heavy Snow-Storm 35 

chickens, but she got it for herself an’ 
us.” 

“ Poor Aurelia ! ” cried all the children at 
once. “ Was n’t it dreadful ? ” 

“ It was,” she said, and the tears stood in 
her eyes. “ I declare, sometimes I pity my- 
self just as if I was somebody else, little an ’ 
poor an ’ hungry, right now. But 1 guess it 
was the hardest on our mother.” 

“She ’s dead, is n’t she ? ” asked Lucinda. 

“ Yes, she ’s dead an’ my sister is married; 
but we lived together a good many years 
when we had plenty to eat an’ wear. Folks 
was terrible good to us after they began to 
find out. I guess I owe about five hundred 
meals to hungry poor folks now to pay for 
what was give me, to say nothin’ of old 
clothes and firewood.” 

“When I am a man,” said Jack, “I’m 
just going to choose that for my business, — 
going around to find folks that are hungry, 
and feed ’em.” 

“ It ’s a mighty good business,” said 
Aurelia, “ an’ it ain’t at all overdid. 1 guess. 


36 The Millers at Pencroft 

though, you ’ll find a good many chances to 
feed hungry folks before you grow up, if you 
look for ’em. Now, everybody carry one 
bowl to the kitchen an’ 1 ’ll take the pitcher. 
Ralph, you carry the cheese-plate. There ! 
Now you children go an’ undress, while 1 
wash the dishes, an’ 1 ’ll come around an’ 
hear you say your prayers as soon as the 
last one is wiped. Land, what a snow- 
storm we are havin’ ! Blows terrible, too ! 
Guess there won’t be many at church to- 
night.” 

Monday Lucinda went to school with 
Helen, and all the children were allowed to 
carry their dinners because the storm was 
so bad. This happened so rarely that they 
thought it a great treat and were full of glee 
when they returned at half-past three. 

“Teacher stayed and ate with us,” said 
Jack, “and after we got through eating we 
played games till the bell rang.” 

“And what do you think? ’’said Ralph 
excitedly. “ 1 believe you can see it from 
one of our up stairs windows. The train 


A Heavy Snow-Storm 37 

west has got stuck in the deep cut down 
here; and they can’t budge it. Ben Stuart 
says he bets it will stay there all night.” 

“Uh-w^, it won’t,” said Jack. “1 was 
just going to tell you about it myself, only I 
wanted to tell the other first. They have 
sent for snow-ploughs, and they think they 
can get it out at eight o’clock prob’ly. 
Sammy Robinson told me, and he ought to 
know, because his big brother is on the 
section-gang, and sent word that he couldn’t 
come home to supper. They are trying to 
keep the snow from packing ’em in too 
tight, and then they have to keep a path 
open from the train to the station.” 

“ It must be lots of fun to be snowed in 
on a train,” said Helen. “I’d play keep 
house in the seats. Do they let little girls 
run around in the cars when they are 
snowed in ? ” 

“Yes,” said Mrs. Miller. “They let 
children do almost anything to keep them 
contented, but it is not fun. 1 was on a 
stalled train once, when I was about your 


38 The Millers at Pencroft 

age, and I was cold and hungry long before 
we started again.” 

“Mother!” said Jack, “Mother Miller! 
1 have a most ^^c-lunt plan. See if you don’t 
think so. Have Aurelia fix up a basket of 
food and we carry it down to the train. 
You know its only two blocks down 
there.” 

“O Jack !” said his mother in dismay, 
“It is so cold, and it will be getting dark so 
soon, and Aurelia has had an especially busy 
day. 1 don’t see how ” 

“ Why, Mother,” said Ralph, “ 1 thought 
you always said to help people every chance 
we had, and I should call this a first-class 
chance.” 

Lucinda kept still, but any one could see 
that she wanted to do it, for her hands were 
pressed tightly together, and there was a 
bright red spot on each cheek. 

“Well,” said Mrs. Miller, slowly. “Well, 
give me a chance to think it all over and 
decide aright.” After a minute she went to 
the telephone, and they heard her call up, 


A Heavy Snow-Storm 39 

first Mr. Miller, and then the station-agent. 
The children sat like little statues, listening 
to what she said, and feeling more sure 
every minute that she would agree to Jack’s 
plan. 

At last she turned from the telephone. 
“ It is all right,” she said, “ Father is coming 
home early to help, and the agent says that 
the passengers cannot leave the cars to get 
their suppers. There are only a few on 
board, but several of them are women and 
children. They have to stay there because 
they do not know how soon the train will 
be freed.” 

“ Goody, goody ! ” shouted Helen, jump- 
ing up and down in the middle of the floor. 
The boys turned somersaults on the rug, 
but Lucinda just gave a little sigh of relief 
and said, “I’m glad we can help feed some 
who have none and want it.” 

“What is that, my child?” asked Mrs. 
Miller, who had not heard distinctly. 

“ Oh, I was thinking about that verse on 
your bread and milk bowls,” said Lucinda, 


40 


The Millers at Pencroft 


“ and 1 was thinking how queer it was that 
we were talking about hungry people only 
last night. Aurelia said she guessed she 
owed about five hundred meals to hungry 
poor folks, to pay for what folks gave her 
when she was little.” 

“lam going out to see Aurelia now,” said 
Mrs. Miller, as she picked up and put away 
the last of her sewing scraps. 

The children flocked after her into the big 
kitchen and listened while she explained 
matters to Aurelia. Aurelia was just pack- 
ing away the last jarful of fresh cookies and 
stood with her hands on her hips while she 
listened. “ Land ! ” she exclaimed. “ Sakes 
alive ! Twenty-five folks snowed in an’ ten 
of ’em without a mite o’ lunch. An’ can’t go 
away from the cars for fear o’ the ploughs 
gettin’ here when they ’re gone ! An’ there 
ain’t a railroad lunch house this side o’ 
Jonesville ! Well! It ’s a good thing 1 got 
such a lot o’ cookies an’ bread baked up. 
Now we ’ll flax around an’ make coffee an’ 
hard-boil some eggs.” 


A Heavy Snow-Storm 41 

“Let us help!” “I can boil eggs just 
splendidly,” and “ Let me make the sam- 
ditches,” begged the children, crowding 
around and getting in Aurelia’s way. 

“Now you Jist stand in a row on that 
there crack in the floor,” said Aurelia, “an’ 
don’t you stir off’n it till we’ve got a job 
ready for you. 1 can’t get the victuals ready 
for you if 1 ’ve got to poke four children out 
o’ the way every time 1 turn around.” 

Lucinda had never seen Aurelia in such 
a rush and rather thought that she was 
being scolded, but the little Millers had been 
stood on that crack before and knew it was 
for only a minute. Aurelia and Mrs. Miller 
were busy by the kitchen table measuring 
out coffee and counting eggs. When that 
was done the children were called upon. 

“Helen,” said Mrs. Miller, “you may 
stand here by the wood-box and tell me 
when that water boils. After that 1 will put 
in the eggs and you may time them for me. 
Ralph, you may get down ten tin plates, all 
the tin cups, and all the tin spoons, such as 


42 


The Millers at Pencroft 


we use for picnics and your party. Jack, 
run up to the storeroom and get the oiled 
paper we use for luncheons and the big tin 
picnic pail. Lucinda, you may help me 
spread these bread and butter sandwiches.” 

After that the work went on easily. Ralph 
and jack carried the big, new clothes-basket 
into one corner of the kitchen and packed 
the dishes in it there. Helen timed the eggs 
and afterward brought down an old blanket 
in which to wrap the coffee-pail. In an hour 
all was ready to be taken as soon as Mr. 
Miller should come. There were sandwiches 
and hard-boiled eggs for ten people and 
coffee and cookies for the whole twenty-five 
passengers and the men of the section-gang. 
When this was done Aurelia sat down on 
the corner of the wood-box and wrapped 
her arms in her apron. “ 1 wish Mr. Miller ’d 
come, now it ’s ready,” she said. “1 hate 
to think o’ them all settin’ around an’ 
starvin’ in a land o’ plenty.” 

“ You ’ll only owe about four hundred and 
ninety meals to hungry poor folks, now, will 


A Heavy Snow-Storm 43 

you, Aurelia ? ” said Ralph, who was al- 
ways figuring out one thing or another. 

“ Huh ! ” said Jack. “ How ’d you know 
those people down there are poor ? I guess 
they would n’t be travelling on the cars if 
they were poor.” 

“Land sakesl” exclaimed Aurelia. “I 
rather think an empty rich stomach is just 
as empty as an empty poor stomach, an’ I 
shouldn’t wonder if it felt a good deal 
emptier because it ain’t used to it. Havin’ 
a pocket full 0 ’ money ain’t satisfyin’ in it- 
self. You can’t eat bills, an’ silver dollars 
don’t digest good.” 

“Dear me,” said Mrs. Miller. “I forgot 
the salt and pepper for the hard-boiled eggs 1 
And I must put in a bottle of milk. There 
may be some babies on board, you know.” 

“There ’s Father! ” shouted the boys, and 
then Mrs. Miller and Aurelia had to help four 
eager, impatient, wriggling children wrap up 
for a struggle through the storm. The 
clothes-basket containing dishes and food 
was tied on to one sled and the huge pail of 


44 The Millers at Pencroft 

coffee, wrapped in the blanket was put on 
another, Ralph and Helen managed the first 
and Jack and Lucinda the second, while Mr. 
Miller was ready to help in all difficulties and 
light their way with a lantern. The station- 
agent had sent word out to the train that 
they were coming, and as soon as the little 
procession got in sight, the section-men 
shouted out a welcome, and helped unload 
the sleds. 

“ Hello! ” said a stout man in a big over- 
coat, who was smoking on the platform of 
the back coach, “ Hello, here comes a rescue 
party ! The agent sent word that you would 
be here. Let me help you up.” He threw 
away his cigar and Jumped down into the 
snow. “ Smallest first,” he said, lifting Helen 
onto the platform. ‘ ‘ 1 have a little girl of my 
own at home, who is just about your weight. 
Now the other girl. There you are 1 Come 
on boys. There 1 Now you step inside the 
car and 1 will help this gentleman with the 
food.” 

The stout man introduced himself to Mr. 


A Heavy Snow-Storm 45 

Miller as Mr. Fitzgerald, and helped lift the 
basket and pail onto the platform. “New 
business for you, 1 take it? ” he said to Mr. 
Miller. 

“My first experience in this line,” he re- 
plied with a smile. “This is really the chil- 
dren’s plan, and their mother and 1 thought 
it a good one. 1 just came along to help.” 

“Oh,” said Mr. Fitzgerald with a hearty 
laugh, “this is the children’s plan is it? We’ll 
see to it that the children have a happy time. ” 

Then the two men hurried into the car, 
closing the door quickly behind them and 
placing the basket and the can on the rear 
seats. “ Ladies and Gentlemen,” began Mr. 
Fitzgerald, “these boys and girls heard that 
we were down here without food, and they 
wanted to help us out. Their father has 
come with them and we are going to have 
a big supper-party in about five minutes. 
There are a cup of hot coffee and a couple of 
cookies a-piece for those who have their 
luncheon with them and something else, I 
don’t know what, for those who have no 


46 The Millers at Pencroft 

food. Everybody who has a lunch-box is to 
open it up at once, as it is half-past five and 
time for the party.” 

Half a dozen men came in from the smok- 
ing-car and some of Mr. Fitzgerald’s ac- 
quaintances on the train helped to turn the 
seats and see that everybody was comforta- 
ble. The boys passed the sandwiches and 
eggs, two of the travelling- men carried 
around cups of steaming coffee, Lucinda fol- 
lowed with a small pail of cream and Helen 
followed after with spoons and sugar. Mr. 
Miller and Mr. Fitzgerald dipped out the 
coffee and managed things finely in their end 
of the car. As soon as the rest were served 
Mr. Miller called in the section-men, who 
left their shovels and brushed and stamped 
outside to get off as much snow as possible. 

“Jiminy,” said one big fellow as he drank 
his coffee and ate his cookies. “ 1 ’d like to 
marry your cook ! ” 

“ Would you really? ” asked jack. “ Shall 
I tell her you said so? Only I ’m afraid if you 
married her she would n’t stay with us any 


A Heavy Snow-Storm 47 

more, and we just couldn’t live without 
Aurelia.” 

“No,” said the big man, when his com- 
panions were through laughing at him. 
“You need n’t tell her that. Instead you just 
tell her that the section-gang say she is the 
boss coffee-maker. Is n’t that so, boys? ” 

“ You bet ! ” was the answer. “ And tell 
her they know good cookies when they see 
them, too.” 

Half way down the car a tired mother and 
her three children were eating their supper. 
She motioned to Lucinda. “ Are the other 
children your brothers and sister?” she 
asked. 

“No ma’am,” said Lucinda. “ They are 
only my friends. 1 am visiting at their 
house while my grandma is away. But 
they are brothers and sister to each other.” 

“Yes, 1 see,” said the lady, pouring out 
some of the milk for the baby, “ and that is 
their father. 1 want you to tell their mother 
especially, that 1 have been sick and am 
hardly able to travel yet, but that 1 had to 


48 The Millers at Pencroft 

start off in haste with my three children and 
no lunch. I do not know how I could have 
kept up until 1 reached my station without 
the supper you children brought. We thank 
you all very much for it.” 

Several of the gentlemen had introduced 
themselves to Mr. Miller by this time and 
were visiting with him where he stood. The 
children were gathering up the tin dishes 
and putting them back into the basket. 
They had quite forgotten the shyness that 
they felt on first entering the car, and were 
making friends everywhere. One of the 
gentlemen watched them passing to and fro 
and asked Mr. Miller if hewould not allow the 
passengers to repay them for their kindness. 

“No, indeed,” said he quickly. “The 
happiness of helping is quite pay enough. 1 
beg of you not to offer them anything.” 

“Mr. Miller is right,” said Mr. Fitzgerald. 
“ Only 1 hope that if it is ever possible for 
me to return the compliment by asking our 
little waiters to dine with me he will allow 
them to accept.” 







Her Mother did n’t notice, but she just stuffed, 


A Heavy Snow-Storm 


49 


“ Certainly,” said Mr. Miller, “ I promise. 
Come, children. 1 think 1 hear the snow- 
ploughs down the track and we must get 
off the train if we are not to be carried 
away from Mother and Aurelia. Good-by, 
everybody.” 

“Good-by, good-by,” cried the children, 
as they passed out through the car-door. 

“ Good-by and thank you,” cried all the 
passengers. “Thank you very much.” 

“O Father,” said Ralph, when they had 
hurried away from the track with the sleds, 
“thank you ever so much for letting us 
come. That was what 1 call a dandy time.” 

“Did you see what mouf-fuls that hun- 
gry little girl took when we gave her the 
bread and butter?” asked Helen. “Her 
mother did n’t notice, but she just stuffed.” 

“ Was n’t that baby cute, though ? ” said 
Jack. “ He was just hollering before he had 
the milk, and afterward he went to sleep as 
soon as his mother laid him down.” 

“That’s what I’m going to do,” said 
Lucinda. 


50 The Millers at Pencroft 

“ What ? Holler ? ” asked Ralph. 

“No, 1 ’m going to sleep as soon as I’ve 
had something to eat,” was the reply. 

“1 wish 1 could,” said Mr. Miller. “1 
have to write letters all evening, but 1 can 
eat as much as any of you.” 

A tired, hungry, sleepy, happy group of 
children hurried to the dining-room when 
their wraps were off, to enjoy what Aurelia 
called “ a pick-up supper,” of left-over scraps 
from the pantry and bread-and-cheese sand- 
wiches, and cocoa. “ Mrs. Miller would n’t 
let me cook you anything more,” she said. 
“She thought 1 was too beat out.” 

“This is all right, Aurelia,” said Mr. 
Miller. “ 1 shall be thankful if I can always 
have as good a meal as this.” 

“ There goes the train,” he added as they 
heard it puffing off through the darkness of 
the winter night. 

“Let ’em go,” said jack sleepily — “Let 
everybody go. Let me go to bed.” 

“Have you had enough to eat?” asked 
Mrs. Miller. “ Don’t you want something 


A Heavy Snow-Storm 51 

more, Ralph? Supper was late and you 
were out in the cold.” 

“No, thank you,” said he, “ 1 am one of 
the ‘ have meat and cannot eats ’ now, I ’ve 
had such a lot already.” 


CHAPTER IV 


HOUSE-CLEANING 

L ucinda’s visit had ended as happily as it 
began, spring vacation had come and 
gone, the stories for Mrs. Miller’s new book 
were written, copied, and sent off to the pub- 
lisher, the plans for the cottage at Trelago 
Point were all drawn, the spring sewing was 
done, and now Mrs. Miller and Aurelia be- 
gan to talk of cleaning house. 

That delighted the little Millers. To them 
the spring and the fall cleaning-times were 
some of the happiest of the year, and of the 
two they greatly preferred the spring one. 
It was such fun to dance jigs on the bare 
floor in rooms which had been carpeted all 
winter, and to jounce up and down on 
couches which had been rolled onto porches 
for cleaning. It was fun, too, when the 

52 


House- Cleaning 


53 


rugs and carpets had been cleaned, to lie 
down on them and pretend to fall asleep, 
and then, when it happened that a carpet 
was left hanging on the line after being 
beaten, there was such a lovely chance to 
spread the sides apart and chase each other 
in and out of the great dark tent it made. 
But the best of it all, they thought, was the 
eating. 

Now the little Millers did not eat any 
more than other children, and their food 
was really much simpler than that of most 
of their playmates, but they had so many 
feasts and picnics and queer treats that they 
had a great deal of pleasure in that way. 
You know what fun it is to eat even the 
plainest food in an unusual place, and Mrs. 
Miller knew it, too, which was lucky for her 
children. There are many grown people 
who do not know this. The very best part 
of house-cleaning, the boys thought, was 
eating dinner in different places. Mr. Miller 
dined at the hotel, Mrs. Miller and Aurelia 
often ate in the kitchen, and the children had 


54 The Millers at Pencroft 

their mid-day meal off the tin dishes in pic- 
nic fashion— somewhere. 

One Monday morning, while the family 
were all at the breakfast table, Mrs. Miller 
announced that cleaning would begin in ex- 
actly one hour. 

“What?” said Mr. Miller. “Begin to- 
day, when 1 am just starting away on a 
business trip ? 1 thought you meant to be- 
gin a week from to-day.” 

“ 1 changed my plans to do it in your ab- 
sence, ” answered his wife. ‘ ‘ Then you will 
escape all the bother of it, and we hope to 
finish before you return.” 

“Can you be the men of the house, 
boys ? ” asked Mr. Miller. “ 1 trust you to 
take the best possible care of Mother and 
Aurelia and Helen. You will not disappoint 
me, will you ?” 

“No, sir! ” they replied. “ You can trust 
us. Can’t anything happen to them while 
we ’re looking after them.” 

Mr. Miller went to the train, the children 
went to school, Mrs. Miller and Aurelia 


House-Cleaning 


55 


pinned towels over their hair and went to 
work, and Mr. Hathaway came over from 
the little house, where he lived with his 
mother, to do the heavy tasks. You see, he 
had given up his place in Chicago, and took 
whatever work he could get in Winthrop 
while he was waiting to find a steady job. 

At noon the children found a dinner for 
three spread out on the side porch with the 
wash-bench for a table, one small chair, one 
box, and a turned-over pail for seats. 

“Samditches! ” cried Helen, “peanut 
samditches! ” 

“Goody!” exclaimed jack, “there ’s 
some of that jelly with things in it that I 
like,” and he pointed to a glass of grape 
conserve. 

“Bananas!” said Ralph. “Bananas for 
dessert and some cold chicken for first 
course. This is what 1 call an elobberet din- 
ner for house-cleaning. Come on, let ’s get 
washed up right off.” 

They ran through the house, shouting to 
their mother as they went. “ Here 1 am,” 


56 The Millers at Pencroft 

she called from the top of the front stair- 
case. “ Aurelia and 1 will have a late din- 
ner to-day, because we must get this carpet 
ready for Mr. Hathaway by the time he re- 
turns from dinner. Have a happy time, chil- 
dren, and 1 will be down before you go to 
school.” She threw them each a kiss, 
which they returned, and then went back 
to her work. 

“Come on, boys,” shouted Helen, “I’m 
going to sit on the pail.” 

“Uh-wA/” said Ralph, “You sit on the 
chair. Girls don’t sit on pails, do they 
Jack ? I never saw a girl sit on a pail in my 
life.” 

“Never,” declared jack. “Helen must 
sit in the chair and you and I ’ll take turns 
sitting on the pail.” 

“ 1 want to sit on the pail,” insisted Helen. 
“1 said so first, and 1 ’m the only lady there 
is here, and ladies ought to have the best of 
everything always. ” 

“ That ’s what 1 think,” said Ralph. “ The 
chair is the best and you ought to have it.” 


House-Cleaning 


57 


“No,” said Helen. “I want the pail,” 
and she ran ahead of the boys and seated 
herself on it. 

The boys did not like this very well, but 
they took the other places and began their 
dinner. They were warm, and tired, and hun- 
gry, and cross, and they stopped quarrelling 
only for the sake of eating. Nobody overheard 
them, and there was nobody at hand when 
the trouble began again later. It happened 
in this way : Helen could not start the peel 
on her banana and stood up to reach for a 
knife. Ralph and jack each thought he saw 
his chance to steal her seat, and made a 
quick motion to step in behind her and sit 
on the pail. Helen saw them start and sat 
so suddenly that she pushed the pail back- 
ward, and fell with it down the five steps to 
the walk, landing on her head. 

Of course she screamed, for her poor little 
head received a very hard blow, and the 
edge of the pail cut a small gash in her chin. 
Ralph was the first to reach her and Jack 
was almost as quick. They set her on her 


5$ The Millers at Pencroft 

feet and tried to comfort her, but she shook 
them off and threw herself, face downward, 
on the lowest step. A little trickle of blood 
dropped from the edge of the step, and the 
boys’ faces turned very pale. 

“Wipe off her chin, Ralph,” said Jack, 
“ 1 left my handkerchief at school.” 

Ralph was just fishing his out of his pocket 
when Mrs. Miller rushed out of the door 
and picked up Helen. She held her on her 
lap and wiped off her face. “ Poor little 
girl 1 ” she said, “Mother’s own little daugh- 
ter ! It is too bad, but you must stop crying 
as soon as you can. There, there ! ” 

“Ralph,” she said, “please bring me a 
basin of water and a wash-cloth. We will 
see how bad this cut really is. jack, please 
slip out the lower drawer of my medicine 
cabinet and bring it to me.” 

Fifteen minutes later Helen was hardly 
crying at all, her flushed face was clean, and 
the cut on her chin was neatly covered with 
court-plaster. “Now,” said Mrs. Miller, 
“1 want to know exactly how this hap- 


House-Cleaning 59 

pened. Helen says that you were to 
blame.” 

Ralph looked at Jack, and jack looked at 
Ralph. “ Well,” the older boy began, “ we 
did n’t mean to make her fall, but we were 
trying to sit on the pail ourselves.” 

“ Why could n’t you be satisfied with the 
box and the chair ? ” asked Mrs. Miller. 
“ Did n’t Helen have the pail first ? ” 

“ Yes,” said jack, “she had it, but Ralph 
said it wasn’t proper for girls to sit on 
pails ” 

“1 didn’t either,” said Ralph. “1 said 
1 ’d never seen a girl sitting on a pail, and 1 
have n’t. 1 told Helen she could have the 
chair, and that ’s a good deal better than a 
pail, so 1 wanted her to have it.” 

“ Very kind, was it not ?” remarked Mrs. 
Miller. “ You love your little sister so very 
much that you insist on her taking a seat 
she does not want and giving you the seat 
she does ! ” 

Helen slid down from her mother’s lap 
and walked around the corner of the house. 


6o 


The Millers at Pencroft 


The boys hung their heads and Jack tried to 
pick up a splinter with his toes. Ralph was 
sulky. “ She sat on the pail all the time till 
we got to bananas, anyway,” he muttered. 
“ I think it was time to give us a chance, and 
I am the oldest.” 

“ Such a thing to quarrel about ! ” began 
Mrs. Miller when she was interrupted. 

‘ ‘ Mrs. Miller, ” called Aurelia from the head 
of the back stairs. “ Come up here right 
off. I ’m afraid there is carpet-bugs in that 
there room, an’ I want you to see about it 
before Mr. Hathaway gets here.” 

“ I must go now,” said Mrs. Miller rising. 
“ I shall talk about this more by-and-by, 
and 1 shall see that you both have chances 
to sit on a pail.” 

When the school-bell rang she ran down 
again. “ Where is Helen ? ” she asked the 
boys, who were playing jack-stones on the 
grass. 

“ Gone to school, I guess,” replied Ralph. 
“ We were hunting for her a minute ago and 
we could n’t find her. I ’m afraid she ’s mad. 


House-Cleaning 6i 

Jack and I meant to tell her how sorry we 
were and ask her to forgive us.” 

Mrs. Miller called a few times and then 
gave it up. “ She never went off without 
saying good-by before,” said she, “ but then 
the child cannot be seriously hurt, jack, 
1 wish you would look into her schoolroom 
and see that she is all right. Tell Miss 
Truesdell that 1 asked you to do so.” 

The boys went off soberly enough. It was 
very seldom that anything at all like a quar- 
rel took place in the Miller home, and Helen, 
being the youngest, was such a pet with 
them all that this time seemed especially 
bad. After they separated to go to their 
different rooms Jack stepped in to see Miss 
Truesdell. Helen was not there. 

“ I am sure she must be coming around 
some other way,” said Miss Truesdell, “or 
perhaps she may have gone down with some 
ofthe girls to buy a pencil. Don’t worry about 
her. You know she is six years old now.” 

That was some comfort to Jack, and he 
slowly climbed the stairs to his own grade. 


62 


The Millers at Pencroft 


But it is not easy to forget such things when 
one has a bad conscience, and when his re- 
cess came, an hour later, he went first of all 
to see Miss Truesdell. Helen had not come. 
Then he could stand it no longer. He went 
back to his own room, where only Miss 
Newberry remained, put his head down on 
the corner of her desk, and sobbed out the 
whole story. “ And my f- father told Ralph 
and me to take care of the rest of the family, ” 
he said at the end, “ and we said we w- w- 
would.” 

“Yes, I understand,” said Miss Newberry. 
“ 1 tell you what to do. Jack. You run home 
and see if Helen is not there. If you find 
her, come back in time for your next class, 
but if you do not, you may spend the rest 
of the afternoon looking for her.” 

Jack dabbed his eyes with his newly found 
handkerchief, shouted “All right,” and was 
off like a shot. He rushed into his home 
shouting “Mother,” and when Mrs. Miller 
appeared at the head of the stairs he asked 
quite breathlessly for his sister. 


House-Cleaning 


63 


“ Isn’t she at school ? ” said Mrs. Miller. 

“Uh-uh! She hasn’t been,” answered 
he. “ Miss Newberry said 1 might stay and 
hunt for her if she was n’t here.” 

“ Aurelia,” called Mrs. Miller, and dropped 
onto one of the upper stairs. Then she told 
the whole story to Aurelia and ended by 
saying “ What shall we do ?” 

“Do? Look for her, I s’pose. It ain’t 
noways likely she ’s sick anywhere. I guess 
she ’s over to Sallie’s or with that Field girl. 
You go hunt her up if you want to. Mr. 
Hathaway can help me up here an’ the 
world will go right on movin’ if we don’t 
get as much done as we calculated on.” 

So Mrs. Miller took the towel off her head 
and rolled down her sleeves and went to 
look for Helen at the neighbors’ homes. 
She was not there. They telephoned to her 
father’s store. She was not there. The 
clerks had not seen her downtown. Mrs. 
Miller was more worried than she was will- 
ing to tell, for she remembered what a blow 
Helen had received on the head, and she 


64 The Millers at Pencroft 

feared that the hurt might have been worse 
than it appeared, and that the child might 
be lying helpless in some place where they 
could not find her. She and Jack looked 
and called all around their home, and then 
Mrs. Miller wrote a note to Ralph’s teacher 
and sent it by jack. “ He must stand his 
share of this,” she said. “ He helped make 
the trouble and he must help bear it.” 

Ralph was soon back and full of anxiety. 
He suggested that Helen might have run 
away from home because she was angry at 
her brothers. 

“I don ’t think so,” said Mrs. Miller. 
“ Surely no child of mine would do such a 
thing.” 

“ 1 started to once,” confessed Ralph. “ 1 
was going to steal rides on freight-cars the 
way tramps do, but 1 got scared and gave it 
up. Do you suppose she is down by the 
railroad ? ” 

“ I don’t think it possible,” said Mrs. 
Miller. “Yet you may go down by the 
station to see if you wish.” 


House-Cleaning 


65 


The boys returned from the station and 
their mother met them at the gate just as 
Mr. Hathaway came down the front stairs. 
They had found no trace of Helen. 

“Aurelia told me to fetch her up the front- 
room carpet and the guest-room rugs, 
ma’am,” said he, touching his cap. “ Will 
you please tell me Just which she means ? 
1 am not sure.” 

Mrs. Miller and the boys followed him to 
the place where a great pile of newly 
cleaned rugs and carpets lay on the grass. 
“I think this must be the carpet, ma’am,” 

he said, “but the rugs ’’and then he 

gave a long, low whistle. 

As he spoke he had turned back a loose 
fold of the carpet, which had fallen so as to 
roof over a space between rolls of rugs and 
other carpets, and there lay a little girl in a 
gray dress, with blue ribbons on her hair 
and court-plaster on her chin. The light 
struck her closed eyelids and she moved 
slightly and yawned. Mrs. Miller, Ralph, 
and jack were down beside her in a minute. 


66 


The Millers at Pencroft 


“ Wake up, little sister, ’’said Ralph. “Wake 
up and we ’ll fix a better place for you to 
sleep in.” 

“ Wake up, you dear, darling, little 
sweetie,” said Jack, putting his arms around 
her. “ Wake up and Bruzzer will never be 
cross to you again.” 

“Say, Helen,” added Ralph, “I’m very 
sorry 1 helped push you down those steps. 
Forgive me.” 

“All right,” said Helen, “I’m going to 
sleep again,” and she rolled over and bur- 
rowed under some rugs to find a dark 
corner. 

Then her mother interfered. “ Come, my 
child,” she said firmly, “you must come to 
the house. We have had a great time find- 
ing you, and now you might better finish 
your nap indoors.” 

“What time is it?” asked Helen sitting 
suddenly upright. 

“ It is afternoon,” said everybody at once. 

“ After recess ? ” she asked. 

“ Long after,” they replied. 


House-Cleaning 


67 


“Then I guess it is time for me to hatch 
out,” she remarked. “ 1 was being a cater- 
pillar. That dark little place was my cocoon 
and 1 was waiting to turn into a butterfly. 
Only I forgot and went to sleep.” 

“ 1 ’ll help you be a butterfly,” said Mr. 
Hathaway. “ You sit on my shoulder and 
wave your arms, and 1 will run to the house 
with you. That will be almost like flying.” 
So that was the way in which the hunt for 
Helen ended. 

It was not all that happened that day, 
however. Ralph and Jack were heartily 
ashamed of the rudeness that had started all 
this trouble, and talked it over between 
themselves. Afterward they called their 
mother aside to talk with them. “ How 
are you going to punish us ? ” they de- 
manded. “ We wish you would tell us now 
and let us get it over.” 

“ 1 think that possibly you have been 
punished enough already,” she replied, “for 
1 know you have been very anxious about 
Helen.” 


68 


The Millers at Pencroft 


“ But what were you going to do ? ” in- 
sisted Ralph. 

“ I was going to make you each sit on an 
upturned pail in a corner of the side 
porch without any playthings or books, ” said 
Mrs. Miller. “ I thought 1 would keep you 
there long enough so that pails would not 
tempt you to such roughness again.” 

“We’ll do it anyhow,” shouted Jack. 
“ Come on, Ralph! ” 

And that was precisely what they did. 
Each sat on a pail in the porch corner from 
half-past three until five, and no coaxing 
from their forgiving little sister could make 
them change their minds. When she dis- 
covered that, she brought out the floor 
cushions and fixed herself a nest on the 
porch between them. There the three spent 
that long hour and a half, visiting, telling 
stories, playing “thumbs up,” and doing 
various other things to pass the time, but all 
these diversions did not make it seem 
short to the boys. Oh, no, indeed! 

Sammy Robinson went along the side- 


House-Cleaning 


69 


walk and whistled to them, and they did not 
even answer, although Ralph knew he had 
been going to spend a nickel for peanuts 
after school. The Flannigans saw them 
there and gave cat-calls from the next 
block, but Ralph and Jack did not budge. 
They only put their hands to their lips and 
shouted back Can't.” These pails seemed 
very hard at four o’clock, and they appeared 
to grow harder right along afterward, yet 
the boys would not back down. They 
wriggled and twisted and shifted their 
weight this way and that, but they stayed 
on the pails. 

As the clock struck five, Ralph stood up 
and jack rolled off onto the floor. 

“ Jiminy! ” said Ralph, “if 1 ever push 
Helen down again, it won’t be because 1 
want to sit on a pail.” 

“Me neither,” said jack, with more 
earnestness than grammar. 


CHAPTER V 


AN INVITATION 

H OUSE-CLEANING was past, the garden 
had been planted, the plans for the new 
summer cottage had been gone over again 
and again, and the men sent north to build it; 
spring vacation had come and gone, and noth- 
ing particularly exciting had happened since 
the day when Helen went to sleep among 
the rugs. The children had been well and as 
good as usual. Mrs. Miller was busy with 
sewing, and Mr. Miller found his business 
took even more time than before. Ralph, 
the restless one of the family, tumbled and 
tossed in a hammock on the porch, while 
the rest of the family sat or played near and 
waited for Aurelia to ring the supper-bell. 

Mr. Miller passed a letter over to his wife, 
saying, “ Read that, Christine, and tell me if 
you think it will be all right.” 

Mrs. Miller read it with a look of sur- 


70 


An Invitation 


71 


prise. Then she nodded and smiled. “All 
right and very pleasant,” she said. 

Mr. Miller took the letter from her and 
folded it away in his pocket. Then he 
took another one out and held it in his hand. 
“ Listen, children,” said he. “ I have just 
had a letter from a gentleman whom you 
have met, and he enclosed this one to you 
in it. He told me about what he wrote 
you, and I was to give the letter to you or 
not, just as I thought best.” 

“ Why?” asked Ralph. “Who is he any- 
way? What did he write us about? Why 
did he ask you to give us the letter instead 
of sending it straight to us? ” 

“O Ralph,” cried jack impatiently. 
“ What makes you ask such a lot of ques- 
tions? Let ’s read the letter and find out.” 

“ Here Ralph, catch it,” said Mr. Miller, 
and he gave the letter a little twist and toss 
which sent it into the hammock close beside 
Ralph. He picked it up and jack and Helen 
snuggled down on either side of him. 

“ What fun 1 ” jack exclaimed. “ It’s type- 


72 The Millers at Pencroft 

written outside ! 1 never had any share of a 
typewritten letter in all my life. 1 wonder 
if it is just the same inside? ” 

“ It ’s from Longfield,” cried Ralph. 
“ Now whom do we children know in Long- 
field? Is it surely from somebody we know? ” 

“ Truly,” said Mrs. Miller, while Mr. Miller 
laughed and made the motion of crossing his 
heart. 

“ O boys ! ” said Helen, “ please hurry 
up.” 

Ralph pulled out his new knife and cut the 
envelope carefully along the upper edge as 
he had seen his father do many times. Then 
he read the address aloud, “ Masters Ralph 
and jack Miller and Miss Helen Miller.” 

“What is that printing up at the top of 
the page ? Was your letter on this kind of 
paper ? ” asked Jack. 

“ That shows that it was written in the 
general office of the Q. E. D. Railroad,” re- 
plied Mr. Miller. “ Mine was just like it.” 

Ralph looked frightened. “Is it about 
our putting pins on the track last week ? ” 


An Invitation 


73 


he asked. “ There was a man came along 
and said the railroad company would have 
us arrested, but I thought he was just 
Joking.” 

“That’s all right,” said his father reassur- 
ingly, “ but I think you might better read 
that now. jack and Helen cannot stand it to 
wait much longer.” 

This was the letter. 

“ My dear little friends : When I had the 
pleasure of eating your sandwiches and 
drinking your coffee last March, on our 
stalled train, I asked your father to let you 
accept an invitation to take dinner with me 
some day, and he promised that he would. 

“ I shall be very glad to have you dine with 
me in Longfield any day next week that is 
most convenient to you. 1 am one of the 
officers of the Q. E. D. road and have my 
office in the big Union Station. I do not go 
home at noon, but eat in the restaurant in the 
building. I have told the agent at the Win- 
throp station to give you six return tickets to 


74 The Millers at Pencroft 

Longfield whenever you are ready to come, 
and when you go for them he will telegraph 
me. Then 1 shall send word down to the 
restaurant to have a table ready for us, and 
when your train comes in 1 will meet you 
and we will all eat together. Perhaps my 
little girl can be down to meet you also. 
Then you can have an afternoon in the city 
and return at six o’clock. 

“One ticket is for your father, one is for 
your mother, and one is for your little friend, 
if she can come. I hope you will not disap- 
point me. 

“Sincerely your friend, 

“Henry P. Fitzgerald, G. P. A.” 

“ Whoopee 1 ” cried the boys together, 
and jack began turning summersaults on the 
• lawn. 

“May we truly?” asked Helen, feeling 
that what she heard was too good to be true. 

“You may go on Saturday if it is pleasant,” 
said Mr. Miller. 

“What time do we start ?” asked Jack. 


An Invitation 


75 

“At half-past ten in the morning,” said 
Mr. Miller. 

“ 1 wish we could go earlier,” said Ralph. 

“ 1 don’t,” said Jack. “ ’Cause if we did 
we ’d get there earlier, and besides it would 
seem so long waiting for dinner.” 

“ What of that ? ” asked Ralph. “ Don’t 
you know there are street-cars and a lot of 
interesting things to see in Longfield ? ” 

“Are there. Mother?” asked Helen, still 
doubtful as to the truth of what she heard, 
and comforted byher mother’s smile and nod. 

Although they had lived all their lives 
within fifty miles of Longfield, the children 
had never been there. Mr. and Mrs. Miller 
went often for business or pleasure, but they 
had always preferred to give their children 
less exciting pleasures, and what little they 
had so far seen of city life was in short 
glimpses from the windows of a railroad 
train. You see it is not strange that they 
were excited. 

Ding-a-ling-a-ling went the supper bell, 
and the children rushed ahead to tell Aurelia, 


76 The Millers at Pencroft 

who received a very much mixed account 
of what had happened. “O Aurelia,” 
they said, “ Mr. Fitzgerald says we are to 
take dinner with him in the station, and 
he ’s a G. P. A., and so Father says it won’t 
cost him much, but he liked our coffee and 
sandwiches so, and we can come back at 
night on the cars and not be very late to 
bed.” 

“Well,” said Aurelia, “1 s’pose it’s 
a-goin’ to be great fun by the way you act, 
but if 1 had n’t seen you act this way before, 
1 should say that about the right place for 
you to take your dinner was in an asylum 
for crazy folks instead of a station.” 

Mr. Miller came to Aurelia’s rescue and 
explained it all. “ It seems too bad that 
Aurelia is not invited,” he said, “when it 
was she who made the coffee and the food 
we carried down that night. She must have 
a holiday while we are in Longfield. What 
shall it be, Aurelia ? Will you go along with 
us as far as Binghamton and spend the day 
with your sister ? ” 


An Invitation 


77 


“I’m all right,” she replied. “I never 
was any hand to go off on the cars for just 
one day. I ’ll take something to eat along 
with me an’ spend the time with old Mrs. 
Hathaway. She ’s got a lot o’ carpet-rags 
that needs cuttin’ up an’ sewin’ the worst 
way, an’ she ’s been after me this long while 
to visit her. Catch me goin’ to Longfield 
even if I was asked ! I ’d be like a cat in a 
strange garret, in a big city.” 

So it was all settled and a letter sent to 
Mr. Fitzgerald. The Miller boys were almost 
envied by their schoolmates, and Helen’s 
friends had such doubts that Janice and Sallie 
actually rang the bell at the Miller front door 
one afternoon and asked Mrs. Miller whether 
it was really true that “the snowed-in gen- 
tleman ” had invited Helen to Longfield on 
Saturday. 

Well, the day came at last. Most days 
do, you know, if people wait long enough. 
There had been moments of sad misgiving 
on Friday, when the clouds piled up threat- 
eningly in the west, and when the boys 


78 The Millers at Pencroft 

went up to bed they were still anxious. 
Then they heard the evening paper thrown 
onto the porch and heard the newsboy cry 
‘ ‘ Paper ! ” as he turned to go. Instantly two 
figures in white pajamas were at the head 
of the stairs. “Mother!” cried Ralph. 
“Please look in the Longfield Journal and 
see what the weather is going to be to- 
morrow.” 

In a minute the answer came up to them, 
“ Cooler and fair.” 

“Hooray!” cried both boys, and jack 
added, “ Beat you asleep, Ralph 1 See if I 
don’t ! ” 

Saturday morning was the finest possible, 
and at exactly ten o’clock the whole family 
started for the train, the boys in fresh sailor 
suits, and Helen in a dainty blue dress. 
Lucinda passed them on the way, sitting up 
beside Yon on the high seat of the lumber 
wagon. She waved her hand, and held up 
the tiny hand-satchel which she was allowed 
to carry only on especial occasions. “Grand- 
ma gave me twenty-five cents to spend for 


An Invitation 


79 


myself,” she called. “I’m going to treat 
you.” 

It was so funny to have everybody look- 
ing out for them and seeming to know just 
where they were going. Usually, you 
know, when people go to the little window 
for tickets, they have to tell where they 
wish to go. This morning, however, the 
agent came up to the window with a smile. 
“Off for Longfield?” he said. “1 have 
your tickets ready for you. Let me see, are 
there six in the party ? That is what I 
thought, but I wanted to know and tele- 
graph Mr. Fitzgerald. You have a fine day 
for the trip.” 

The baggage-master came through with a 
bunch of checks in his hand. “ Good morn- 
ing, Mr. Miller,” said he. “ 1 see you are 
off for Longfield.” 

The train came in exactly on time, al- 
though they had feared that it might be 
late, and the conductor nodded to them 
as he ran over to sign the record-book in the 
station. “Why, here are the people who 


8o 


The Millers at Pencroft 


fed those hungry passengers for us last 
March,” he said, and he raised his cap to 
Mrs. Miller, whom he had known for years. 

The colored porter came toward them 
with his very best smile. “ I’se got some 
seats saved fo’ yo’ in de pahlah cah, sah,” 
said he. “ Mistah Fitzgerald tole me to look 
aftah yo’ mos’ pahticulah.” 

The other children had travelled in parlor 
cars before, but Lucinda had never done so. 
Everything was new and strange to her, and 
she turned her bright eyes this way and 
that in the effort to see as much as she pos- 
sibly could. Soon she arose and tiptoed 
over to Mrs. Miller’s chair. “ Do you mind 
if 1 stare at things ?” she whispered. “ I 
won’t point or talk out loud about them.” 

“ Stare all you wish,” replied Mrs. Miller. 
“ We shall not mind at all.” 

“Oh, look, Lucinda,” cried Helen, “just 
see these cows! ” 

“ 1 don’t want to,” said Lucinda, who was 
sitting on a hassock and swinging her chair 
around, trying to see whether it could be 


An Invitation 


8i 


turned up and down. “I don’t want to, 
Helen. I see cows every day at home.” 

Ralph was more quiet than the other chil- 
dren, and finally turned quite away from 
them and sat bolt upright in his seat. His 
father and mother watched him for a while 
in silence, and then his father said, “ Of 
what are you thinking, my son ? ” 

Ralph started when he was spoken to 
and blushed a little. “ 1 guess you will 
laugh at me,” he said, “ but 1 was seeing 
how it would feel to be the President of the 
United States.” 

“You were!” said his father. “What 
ever put that into your head ? ” 

“ Oh, it was having everybody so polite 
to me, you know, and having a seat saved 
ahead and all. It seemed so much like 
what we read about the way the Presi- 
dent travels. Did you hear the porter call 
me ‘ sah ’ when he helped me up the steps? ” 
“ 1 did n’t notice it,” replied Mr. Miller. 
“ He probably is so in the habit of it that he 
called you that without thinking. 1 should 


82 


The Millers at Pencroft 


think it would be much more fun to be a 
little boy than to be a President, but 1 would 
just as soon have you pretend in this way 
for a while if you wish.” 

“You might better turn back into a little 
boy before we reach Longfield,” suggested 
Mrs. Miller. “Mr. Fitzgerald might not be 
quite ready to entertain the President. ” She 
gave his shoulder a light pat as she spoke 
and he responded with a short nod. It was 
a bargain between them that when she saw 
him getting airy, or what the other children 
called “ stuck up,” she was to remind him in 
some way. It was a temptation to which he 
yielded now and then, and his mother wanted 
her children to think more about being 
worthy of honor than simply of receiving it. 

“ 1 guess 1 ’d better be a little boy now,” 
said Ralph. “ I’ll begin by tucking in my 
shoe-strings. 1 suppose Presidents never do 
that. They probably just stick out their feet 
and somebody does it for them.” 

“ If Presidents do not do all the small every- 
day tasks, my son,” said his father, “it is 


An Invitation 


83 


only because they are too busy with larger 
ones. No lazy man will ever reach that 
position.” 

It was a delightful trip, not long enough to 
tire anybody and yet quite long enough to 
make the children contented with their ride 
in the cars and ready to alight when they 
reached Longfield. The excitement of arrival 
began when the long streets of small cot- 
tages, all exactly alike, appeared beside the 
train. 

“ Look at those houses all alike 1” cried 
Lucinda. “ Why did they build them so ? 
They remind me of a whole lot of chickens 
of the same size and color. I should think 
the people who live in them would get lost 
and go into the wrong houses.” 

“They can tell the different ones by the 
numbers,” explained Mr. Miller. “Each 
has its number in plain figures over the door 
or on it.” 

“ Gr-r-racious ! ” said Lucinda, “ who ever 
heard of such a thing ! ” 

Next they saw the huge factories for which 


84 The Millers at Pencroft 

Longfield is noted, and just as these came 
into sight the train began to run more 
slowly. The children all stood. “Sit 
down,” said Mr. Miller. “We shall not 
reach the station for several minutes, and I 
want you to stay in your seats until the 
train is quite still.” 

Then came a blissful time when they heard 
the warning gongs sounding for each street 
that they approached, saw the bar-like gates 
swing into place just as the train passed, and 
also saw the street-cars slipping over the 
tracks here and there and stopping exactly 
at the corners for passengers to alight or 
board them. “It is just like fairy-land,” 
said jack with a happy sigh. “ Everything 
seems to do something all of itself. The 
only trouble about me is that I am so afraid 
that I am asleep and that I shall wake up 
before 1 have had all my good times.” 

Now the light grew dim and the noise of 
the train echoed back strangely from a great 
roof which spread overhead. Other trains 
were standing on tracks alongside, people 


An Invitation 


85 


with travelling bags hurried to and fro like 
ants on a sunshiny day, the porter brushed 
the dust from his last parlor-car passenger 
and pocketed his last fee with his last smile, 
the conductor hurried through, and the 
brakeman threw open the doors. Ralph 
caught one glimpse through the window of 
Mr. Fitzgerald standing beside an open gate- 
way in the tall iron fence outside, and 

they had reached Longfield 1 


CHAPTER VI 


THE DAY IN LONGFIELD 

A S soon as he saw his guests coming 
toward the gate Mr. Fitzgerald came 
forward to meet them, speaking to the four 
children and Mr. Miller and then walking 
along beside Mrs. Miller, whom he now met 
for the first time. “ Will you come at once 
to the restaurant ? ” he said. “ 1 know it is 
a trifle early for dinner, but travelling often 
makes one hungry, and if these children are 
like my little girl they probably eat very 
light breakfasts when there is something 
exciting ahead of them.” 

“ 1 ate as much as usural,” said Jack, 
turning around and walking backward, “ but 
Mother had to just make Ralph eat things, 
and Helen said she wasn’t hungry a bit.” 
Ralph colored up at this, but his eyes 
86 


The Day in Longfield 87 

danced and he remarked, “ Well, 1 guess she 
won’t have to make me eat things this 
noon ! ” 

• Mr. Fitzgerald laughed in the same hearty 
way he had on the snow-bound train. 
“ Great day, is n’t it ? ” he said. “ My little 
girl was almost as much excited over my 
dinner-party as you were, even if she did 
not have to come on the train. Poor child! 
She was sick for a long time and missed the 
fun her schoolmates had all winter.” 

Mr. Fitzgerald seemed to be the happiest 
one in the party, guiding the children across 
the tracks, letting them stop and watch the 
working of the turnstile and take their time 
in crossing the beautiful great waiting-room 
to the restaurant beyond. “ My little Ger- 
trude will be waiting for us there,” he said. 
“ We do not let her walk very much yet, 
and I wanted her to save her strength for 
this afternoon.” 

In the restaurant a corner table by an open 
window stood ready for eight, and there was 
a very pale and slender little girl of ten, all 


88 


The Millers at Pencroft 


smiles and eagerness. “These are my 
friends from Winthrop, Gertrude,” said Mr. 
Fitzgerald. “These are the people who 
saved your poor, hungry father and a lot of 
other tired and hungry people from starva- 
tion last March.” Then he mentioned the 
name of each and in a very short time they 
were all well acquainted. 

Gertrude told her new friends how her 
mother was out of town for a short rest and 
she was being cared for by her governess. 
“ She is just dear,” said Gertrude, “ and you 
will see her soon. Father is going to let us 
all go driving with her after dinner.” 

When she said this jack kicked Ralph 
under the table and Lucinda nudged Helen 
with her elbow. Ralph straightened up in- 
stantly and scowled at Jack so fiercely that 
that young man decided he must have for- 
gotten and taken too large a mouthful. That 
quite startled him, for all the children came 
intending to have the most perfect table 
manners. Two waitresses in black dresses 
and tiny white aprons gave all their time to 


The Day in Longfield 89 

this table and helped the boys and girls 
whenever they needed help. They sat at 
one end of the table, Gertrude being in the 
very end seat and the others on either side 
of her. Mr. Fitzgerald sat opposite his 
daughter with Mr. and Mrs. Miller on either 
side, so the older people visited by them- 
selves and the younger ones chattered away 
about the things which most interested 
them. 

“ 1 suppose you are here very often,” said 
Ralph politely to Gertrude. 

“Oh, no, 1 hardly ever come here,” she 
replied. “ Only Mother is away this week 
and 1 miss her so much that when the day 
is fine Father has let me come down and eat 
with him. He never comes home at noon, 
you know.” 

“Never comes home at noon ! ” said the 
four visitors at once. “ Why, how do you 
stand it ? ” 

“Does your father come home then?” 
asked Gertrude in her turn. “That must be 
because you do not live in a large city. Here 


90 The Millers at Pencroft 

there is not time for men to go so far and 
get back.” 

“We live quite far from Father’s store,” 
said jack. “It is four squares and a half. 
How many squares from here do you 
live ? ” 

“ 1 don’t know how many squares it is,” 
replied Gertrude, “but it is about three 
miles.” 

“ jiminy ! ” said Ralph. “ Oh, 1 beg your 
pardon ! 1 did n’t mean to say that, but 1 

was so surprised.” 

“ Why, Ralph,” remarked jack. “ That 
is farther — a great deal farther — than out to 
Warren’s Creek and back ! 1 ’m glad we 
don’t live in a big city after all.” 

Helen had not talked very much. She 
had been interested in watching the peo- 
ple who ate at the lunch counter beyond. 
“ just look at the big mouffuls that fat man 
takes 1 ” she cried suddenly. ‘ ‘ And he drinks 
down his food too ! Most all those men 
drink down their food. Did n’t their mothers 
teach them to be any more politer ? ” 


The Day in Longfield 91 

“Look out, my dear,” said her father. 
“Those men may hear what you say, and 
they have to eat in that way or not at all — 
sometimes. They have to hurry or else miss 
their trains.” 

“1 fear the manners in my dining-room 
here are not so good as those you see at 
home,” said Mr. Fitzgerald smilingly, “but 
how does the food suit you ? Are you get- 
ting everything you wish ? ” 

“Everything,” said they. 

Lucinda said more than that. They were 
just eating Nesselrode pudding, and she felt 
very sure that there had been some mistake. 
“ You must n’t worry about your ice-cream,” 
said she. “It is the nicest 1 ever had. It 
did n’t spoil it at all because the hired girl 
spilled some things into it. I Just eat them 
too, and it is very good.” 

Mr. Fitzgerald wiped his moustache on his 
napkin and said that he would not worry, 
that he thought it tasted very good. “Now 
about this afternoon,” he said. “ Have you 
any plans ? ” 


92 The Millers at Pencroft 

“ Mrs. Miller and I have a little shopping 
to do,” replied Mr. Miller, “and after that 
we thought of taking the children on a trol- 
ley-ride to the park.” 

“ Let me suggest another plan,” said Mr. 
Fitzgerald. “My man will be at the door 
with the carriage in a few minutes, and Ger- 
trude and her governess. Miss Clarke, are 
going out to the park. If you are willing to 
let your children go with them, they shall 
be back at the station at whatever time you 
choose, and Miss Clarke will see that they 
have a happy time meanwhile. That will 
leave you free for your shopping.” 

“lam sure there is but one answer to 
such an ofier as that,” said Mr. Miller as he 
glanced at the eager faces around him. 
“We shall be delighted.” 

Lucinda and Helen squeezed hands under 
the table-cloth, Ralph tried his best not to 
be undignified, and Jack muttered under his 
breath, “ Dandy I ” his favorite exclamation. 
“Then when you have finished — ” began 
Mr. Fitzgerald, but he did not need to end 


The Day in Longfield 93 

the sentence for his guests, the younger 
ones, were on their feet as though moved 
by a single spring. 

The carriage was at the door, drawn by 
a span of fine bays. Lucinda looked at 
the coachman with some awe. She had 
never seen a man wear such a tall hat 
before, and she thought he looked very 
“ stuck up,” as he sat so straight on the 
high seat. Mr. Fitzgerald opened the low 
door on the side of the carriage and helped 
the children in, after introducing them all to 
Miss Clarke. Helen was to sit on the back 
seat with Miss Clarke and Lucinda, the boys 
on the front seat with Gertrude. The coach- 
man was told where to go, and they drove 
away in the sunshine, the very happiest 
carriage-load in Longfield that day. 

And what wonders they saw! None of 
the four visitors had ever been in so large a 
place, and all the things which made it 
different from Winthrop were new to them. 
Miss Clarke seemed to enjoy hearing them 
talk, so they chattered away as hard as they 


94 The Millers at Pencroft 

wished and asked her questions about nearly 
everything they saw. Before the boys did 
this, however, they had to find out about 
the coachman. 

Ralph began it by whispering to Gertrude, 
“Is this gentleman very rich, indeed?” he 
asked. 

“ What gentleman ? ” said she. 

“ This one up on the front seat,” explained 
Ralph, “the one who looks so sort of 
stylish.” 

“ Rich ?” said Gertrude. “No, he isn’t 
rich at all. He lives in a little bit of house 
and his children have only a tiny yard to 
play in. He has n’t any money except what 
Father pays him for taking care of our 
horses.” 

“ Oh,” said Jack, who had been listening 
to this conversation, “ 1 did n’t understand 
either. 1 thought he was just a rich man 
who went driving for fun and let us go along 
in the seats he wasn’t using. He won’t 
mind if we talk a good deal, will he ? ” 

“No,” replied Gertrude. “Miss Clarke 


The Day in Longfield 95 

does not let me call out to anybody or point 
at things, that is all.” 

Do you want to know what interested 
them most ? First the pavements, for all the 
streets they had ever seen were of just earth, 
and had more or less grass growing along 
the edges. Then the street-cars rushing 
along on their shining tracks, and the men 
with push-carts selling fruit from door to 
door. They drove along avenues where the 
houses were stately and beautiful and the 
closely-clipped lawns looked like green vel- 
vet, and then through the business portion, 
where they had just a glimpse of Mrs. Miller 
entering a large dry-goods store. In the 
window of this store stood figures of beauti- 
ful women in fine gowns, with fluffy para- 
sols over their heads. At first the children 
thought them real, and Miss Clarke had to 
explain that they were made of wax and 
wood and other material and used to display 
articles which were for sale. 

“They’re just like dolls only bigger, 
are n’t they ? ” asked Helen. 


96 


The Millers at Pencroft 


“Just the same,” agreed Miss Clarke. 

“ But they are not to play with ? ” asked 
Helen. 

“Never for that,” said Miss Clarke. 

“ 1 wanted to be sure, so 1 could tell Mag- 
gie Flynn when 1 get home, you know,” 
said Helen. “ Maggie is very fond of dolls, 
but I fink she does n’t love them quite so 
much as she did last year.” 

When they got into a crush at a street- 
crossing they saw a tall policeman manag- 
ing matters. 

“Is that a policeman?” asked Ralph. 
“ Whom is he arresting ? ” 

“Has somebody been naughty?” asked 
Helen. 

“ Why does he stand out in the middle 
of the street and shake his stick at people ? ” 
asked jack. “ Is he mad ? He looks pleas- 
ant enough.” 

Then Gertrude and Miss Clarke had to 
explain again, and Lucinda, sitting beside 
Miss Clarke and almost too happy to talk, 
saw the coachman smile as he looked quickly 


The Day in Longfield 97 

over his shoulder. She smiled back from 
pure happiness and just then it was their 
turn to move on right past that wonderful 
great navy-blue policeman, who looked so 
much like the pictures one sees in books. 

The next excitement was when they 
reached a more quiet street and heard a 
queer sound, somewhat like a piano and 
somewhat like a tin pan. A queer-looking 
cart covered with a green cloth stood by the 
curbing and a dark man with gold ear-rings 
stood beside it and turned a crank. He 
looked very tired and warm, but he turned 
and turned and turned and turned. A group 
of children stood around him, and others 
were running toward him from both direc- 
tions. Instantly the boys had faced around 
and were kneeling on their seat and looking 
forward for a better view. Ralph’s eyes 
were ablaze with excitement, but he remem- 
bered a minute later and turned to ask Miss 
Clarke if she minded their doing so. 

“ I would rather you sat down,” she re- 
plied and then she asked the coachman to 


The Millers at Pencroft 


halt on the opposite side of the street for a 
few minutes. 

Jack was looking for something else. 
“Miss Clarke,” said he, “is that a hand- 
organ ? ” 

“It is a street piano,” she answered, 
“and that is very much the same thing.” 

“Well,” said jack, “ do street pianos ever 
have ” 

“ Oh, look,” cried Gertrude, “ do look ! 
There comes the monkey in his cute little 
jacket ! Don’t you like monkeys ? ” 

Nobody answered. To see a monkey for 
the first time in your whole life, a monkey 
in a scarlet jacket with brass buttons, with a 
jaunty cap upon his head, and to have him 
run directly toward the carriage, his long 
tail curving away behind him, and his slender 
chain clinking along on the pavement, to 
have him hold out a tin cup for pennies in his 
queer skinny little hand, — would you have 
answered Gertrude’s question if you had 
been there ? 

The monkey climbed up on the wheel 


The Day in Longfield 99 

and passed his cup to them. Miss Clarke 
put in a few pennies and Lucinda opened 
her little hand-bag to take out the precious 
twenty-five cent piece. “ 1 would n’t put 
that in, my dear,” said Miss Clarke. “ What 
1 gave him is quite enough from one carriage. 
Give him that peanut from the bottom of your 
bag instead. That he can enjoy himself, 
but the money will be taken by his master.” 

So the monkey perched on the side of the 
carriage and cracked and ate his nut, while 
Helen shrank back into the farthest corner of 
the seat and watched him with a mixture of 
fear and happiness. Lucinda was somewhat 
afraid also. Ralph was examining every de- 
tail of his queer body and Jack was wonder- 
ing if the buttons on his jacket were real 
gold. At last the Italian jerked the chain and 
the monkey ran back to him. 

“ He does use his hands the way Mother 
says monkeys do,” said Ralph. “ 1 noticed. 
He takes hold of things just like this,” grasp- 
ing jack’s wrist, “with his thumb on the 
same side as his fingers. Did you ever 


L. OF C. 


lOO 


The Millers at Pencroft 


notice that, Miss Clarke ? Mother says 
that if people hadn’t been able to reach 
around things, tools and things, you know, 
with their thumbs on the side opposite from 
their fingers, they would not know much 
more than monkeys now.” 

“ It ’s a good thing for us our thumbs grow 
on right, 1 should say,” said Lucinda. 
“ We ’d miss all this fun if they did n’t ! ” 

“ Well, 1 guess so/ ” remarked Jack. “ 1 ’d 
just as soon wear a red coat and get pennies 
and peanuts from folks, but 1 would n’t like 
to have a chain fastened to me and have to 
give my pennies to a man.” 

Then they went to the park and the coach- 
man drove the horses around slowly, while 
Miss Clarke and the children stayed beside 
the pond or sat in the interesting summer- 
houses that were scattered here and there. 
Last of all they visited the bear-pit and the 
enclosures where a few wild animals were 
kept. Longfield was a place of only about 
sixty thousand people, and the park mana- 
gers were just beginning to collect animals. 


The Day in Longfield loi 

By the time they started back all the little 
guests were quite tired, yet they were hardly 
willing to have the outing end when the 
carriage drew up at the Union Station. Mr. 
and Mrs. Miller were waiting for them by the 
entrance, and they said good-by to Gertrude 
and Miss Clarke over and over again. 
“It’s been a lovely time,” they said, “the 
very best we ever had.” And Ralph added, 
“ Especially about that monkey’s thumbs. 

1 had so wanted to see a monkey’s 
thumbs.” 

There were messages of thanks to be sent 
to Mr. Fitzgerald, who could not be there to 
see them leave, and then the carriage rolled 
away with Miss Clarke smiling over her 
shoulder, Gertrude waving her hand to 
them, and the coachman, the “ sort of 
stylish ” coachman in his high hat actually 
touching it with his whip by way of fare- 
well. 

The train was called just then by the loud- 
voiced porter near the door, and the party 
for Winthrop boarded it at once. The same 


102 


The Millers at Pencroft 


conductor took their tickets, the same col- 
ored porter made them comfortable, and the 
same seats were saved for them in the parlor 
car. “ Is n’t it fun to come onto a train and 
feel so — so — natural ! ” exclaimed Lucinda, 
and then she looked very grave. ‘ ‘ 1 wonder, ” 
she added, “ if 1 shall ever have such a good 
time again in all my life?” 

“ Lots of them,” said Mr. Miller, patting 
her hand. “ Lots of them and better ones, 
too. If you begin to talk in that way 1 shall 
think you need food. Mother, don’t you 
think her voice sounds hungry ? 1 think 
that as soon as you children are ready we 
we will go into the dining-car.” 

This was a new and joyful surprise and 
made them all forget how tired they were. 
They sat at tables only about a quarter as 
large as the dining-table in the Miller home, 
and ate food which was served in queer little 
oval dishes. Lucinda declared that these 
were certainly made for birds’ bath-tubs. She 
was sure she had seen a neighbor’s canary 
bathe in one exactly like them. The others 


The Day in Longfield 103 

disagreed with her and Jack finally settled 
the matter by suggesting that the dishes 
were probably made for food but used for 
birds. 

It was exciting to see the colored waiter 
balance himself on one foot when the train 
rounded a curve. He had a large tray piled 
full of good things which he was bringing 
in, and the children ducked their heads and 
waited for the crash. It did not come. The 
tray waved back and forth over their heads 
a few times and then the train ran steadily 
and supper was served. 

Helen nodded over her glass of milk and 
went to sleep on the long end seat of the 
parlor car as soon as they returned there, 
jack lay down beside her “for just a min- 
ute” and was dreaming in two minutes, 
Lucinda dozed off sitting bolt upright in her 
chair, and Ralph winked very slowly and 
sleepily. It was hard work getting them all 
awake to alight at the home station, but the 
porter helped Mr. and Mrs. Miller, so it was 
done in time and they all walked up to- 


104 The Millers at Pencroft 

gather to the Miller home, where Lucinda 
was to spend the night. 

Aurelia met them at the front door. “ O 
Aurelia,” they shouted, “you should have 
been there. Mr. Fitzgerald is the jolliest 
man and the best man, and we saw more 
things, but the very finest thing in Longfield 
is that monkey I ” 


CHAPTER VII 


EARNING MONEY 

“ IWl SMITH writes that the cottage will 
be ready for us the last of June,” 
said Mrs. Miller, folding up the letter which 
she had been reading and slipping it into an 
envelope. “ I wonder when we might better 
plan to go.” 

“ I cannot get away before July,” said Mr. 
Miller, “and 1 shall have to return for a 
week in August. I would like to be here for 
the Fourth if possible.” 

They were sitting in the living-room and 
their children were playing tiddle-dy-winks 
on the floor. It was Jack’s turn to shoot or 
flip his disc into the bowl, but he sat as still 
as a statue listening to the conversation 
behind him. “ Listen ! ” he whispered. 
“They’re talking about going to Pencroft ! ” 


io6 The Millers at Pencroft 

There was a little more discussion and 
then they heard their mother say, “ I will 
plan for the sixth of July this year.” 

“Then we’ll be here for the Fourth,” 
said Ralph, “ but we have n’t begun to save 
our money for fireworks yet.” 

“ Can’t yet,” remarked Jack. “ You and 
I ’ve got to pay for having that hydrant fixed 
first.” 

“That ’s so,” agreed Ralph. “ Father said 
it would be twenty-five cents, and we ’ve 
only got eleven of it now.” 

The boys had been playing blacksmith the 
week before, you see, and had used the hy- 
drant in the front yard for an anvil, pounding 
on it until the wheel at the top broke squarely 
off. This was after they had been asked to 
leave the hydrant quite alone, so of course it 
was only fair that they should pay for 
it. 

“ I’ll have to get me a five cent tablet out 
of this week’s allowance,” said jack. 

“So will 1,” said Ralph, “and a pencil, 
too. There’s six cents of my allowance 


Earning Money 107 

gone the best way you fix it, and 1 was late 
home from school the night 1 stopped to ride 
Rob Black’s new wheel, so 1 ’ll have only 
nine cents this week.” 

Mrs. Miller took two cents off the boys’ 
allowances for each night that they were 
late home from school and one cent for each 
night that Helen stopped to play by the way. 
She said they ought to come directly home 
first and go to play afterward. 

“1 ’ve been on time so far this week,” 
said Jack. “ 1 tell you what let ’s do the 
rest of this year. Let’s Just run home 
lickety-cut every night, and then we won’t 
be temptationed to play along.” 

“All right, sir,” agreed Ralph. “I ’ll do 
it. Helen ! how much have you on hand ? ” 
“ 1 have free cents and a nickel,” said she. 
“ That ’s almost ten cents, isn ’t it? ” 

“ It ’s eight cents,” replied Ralph promptly. 
“Say Helen, when are you going to begin 
saving for the Fourth ? ” 

“ After school is over,” said she. “ We 
children in Miss Truesdell’s room are going 


io8 


The Millers at Pencroft 


to buy penny pictures of fings to take home. 
She finks pictures are nicer than firecrackers 
’cause they don’t bust and be no good after- 
ward. ” 

From this time Ralph and Jack took every 
chance of earning extra pennies. They piled 
wood, they picked up chips, they thinned 
out the long rows ofbeets and turnips in the 
garden and pulled weeds from the flower- 
beds. The debt for the hydrant repairs was 
soon paid, and then every penny was saved 
for the Fourth. At first they wanted to 
spend their money as fast as they earned it 
and stow the fireworks away in the house. 
To this Mrs. Miller objected. “ 1 used to 
let you do that when you were younger,” 
she said, “ but now that you are old enough 
to earn so much money and buy so many 
fireworks I do not like to have the gun- 
powder in the house. You save the money 
in your purses, and have your fun in count- 
ing that over. Then you will spend it more 
wisely in the end.” 

At first the boys disliked to do this, and 


Earning Money 109 

Ralph even pouted a little, but they knew 
that teasing never did any good in their 
home, so they said no more about it. They 
set their hearts, however, on having a fine 
celebration and their purses grew so fat with 
pennies that they had to “ have a change 
with Father,” as Jack said, and get nickels 
instead of pennies. The purses were so 
small that they even thought it would soon 
be necessary for them to exchange nickels 
for dimes, and as their hoard of money grew 
their plans grew also, and they were as far 
from having enough to satisfy them as they 
had been with only pennies. 

It was just after they saw an especially 
fine display of rockets in a downtown win- 
dow that Ralph became so discontented. 
“ 1 tell you what it is. Jack,” he said, “the 
other fellows’ folks let them do downtown 
jobs, carrying wood up to the offices and 
things like that, and Father won’t let us. I 
wish he would.” 

“Well, it is n’t any use asking,” remarked 
Jack. “ Besides there is n’t any wood much 


1 10 


The Millers at Pencroft 


to bring up in warm weather. I wish we 
could do jobs for more people, though. 
We Ve done about everything around home 
now.” 

“Let’s ask Father if he can’t think of 
something we can do away from home,” 
suggested Ralph. “ Let ’s ask him this very 
night at supper-time.” 

“ After supper,” corrected Jack. “Don’t 
you know Mother always says people are 
more likely to say ‘yes’ to things when 
their stomachs are good and full ? We ’ll 
Just wait until he comes out into the sitting- 
room afterward.” 

Shortly before supper that night there was 
the sound of mighty scrubbing from the 
bath-room^ and when the bell rang the two 
boys who responded to it were so clean that 
they were shiny. Jack’s straight light hair 
and Ralph’s wavy brown hair were wet and 
plastered tight to their heads, while very 
noticeable partings zigzagged from their 
foreheads to the crowns of their heads. And 
such charming manners as they had ! Jack 


Earning Money 


III 


held the door open for his parents to pass. 
Ralph picked up his mother’s handkerchief 
and handed it back to her with a deep bow. 
They said “ please ” and “ thank you ” and 
“pardon me,” and took the smallest of 
mouthfuls. Mr. Miller looked at his wife 
and the corners of his mouth twitched. She 
looked at him and her eyes twinkled. Neither 
said anything about it. Helen did. 

“ 1 fink you are pretty polite for you,” she 
remarked, looking squarely at her brothers. 
“The last time you were as polite as this 
was when you broke the hydrant, and were 
going to tell Father after supper.” 

Then everybody laughed, of course, the 
boys as heartily as the rest. 

“ Has Helen guessed it ? ” asked Mr. Mil- 
ler. “ Is there a confession coming ? What 
is it now ? Have you broken a neighbor’s 
window or set fire to somebody’s barn ? ” 
“Oh, we have n’t done anything,” replied 
Ralph. “ 1 guess we do look auspiciously 
slick [he was very fond of big words, you 
know], but we wanted to ask you some- 


1 12 


The Millers at Pencroft 


thing very important after supper and we 
wanted you to be sure to say ‘ yes. ’ ” 

“Very well,” said Mr. Miller. “Thank 
you for waiting. 1 was tired and hungry 
and 1 am glad you did so. I am glad it was 
not any mischief you have been doing. To 
tell the truth when 1 saw your hair 1 thought 
it must be a broken window at the very 
least ! ” 

After supper Mr. Miller sat in his easy- 
chair and the boys stood in front of him. 
Mrs. Miller sat in a rocker near by with 
Helen on her lap. “Now 1 am ready,” said 
he, “ only talk one at a time and don’t hurry 
me about deciding.” 

“Well, it’s just this way,” began Ralph 
who spoke first because he was the elder. 
“ We need a good deal of money for fire- 
works this year.” 

“ More than usural,” said Jack. 

“And we have only about seventy-five 
cents now.” 

“ Seventy-six,” said jack. 

“ And we have done every job we could 


Earning Money 1 1 3 

possibly find around home, and we are very 
much afraid that the garden won’t need 
weeding again before the ‘ Fourth.’ ” 

“The weeds do grow so slowly,” re- 
marked jack. 

“1 thought they grew rather fast my- 
self,” said Mr. Miller with a smile. 

“ Well, anyway,” continued Ralph, “ we 
wish you would let us take Jobs downtown 
like the other fellows, so we could earn 
more.” 

“ Ralph,” exclaimed Jack, “ I told you not 
to ask him that ! What we meant to ask 
was if you could n’t tell us some new way 
of getting money.” 

“lam not willing you should work around 
Main Street,” said Mr. Miller. “You must 
always remember that, but why do you not 
go into business ? ” 

“ How could we?” asked both boys at 
once. 

“Well,” replied their father, “in several 
ways. It would have to be some way suit- 
able for boys, of course. Why not write out 


1 14 The Millers at Pencroft 

neat cards with your name and a notice that 
you would like to do errands and odd jobs 
for people ? ” 

“ And send them to folks ? ” asked Ralph 
breathlessly. 

“Yes, send them or hand them in at homes 
where there are no children to run errands.” 

“ Slick ! ” said Ralph. 

“ Dandy 1 ” said Jack. 

“ 1 think 1 have some blank cards that will 
be about the right size,” continued their 
father, and he arose and went to his desk, 
where he searched for a minute and returned 
with a small package. 

“ 1 wish you would write them for us,” 
said Jack. “ You know you write so much 
better than we do.” 

“That would not be best,” said Mr. 
Miller. “ 1 will tell you what to say and 
help you make a list of people to whom to 
give them, but you must do the real work 
yourself. Practise writing it fine on some 
other paper first.” 

That was how it came about that the next 


Earning Money 115 

day fifteen ladies were called to their front 
door by two very clean and businesslike small 
boys who took off their caps, said “Good 
morning,” in a most cheerful way, and 
handed in their card. When these ladies had 
somewhat recovered from their surprise and 
closed the door, they read, in plain and fairly 
straight hand-writing the following an- 
nouncement : 


J?. and y. Miller, 

Doers of odd jobs. 

Work wanted. Prices fair. 
Telephone 6g, Hours 6 a, m. to 6 p, m. 


The boys had been warned not to expect 
trade to begin at once, yet they did get one 
job on the spot. It was when they handed 
their last card in to Mrs. Ryerson. She had 
closed the door behind them before reading 
it. Then she hurried out onto the steps and 
called the boys back. 


ii6 The Millers at Pencroft 

“ Can you do an errand for me right 
now ? ” she asked. 

“Yes ma’am,” said they joyfully. 

“It is carrying a note way over to Mrs. 
Bixby’s and bringing back an answer. 1 
was just wondering whom I could send. 
How much do you charge for that sort of 
job ? ” 

The boys hardly knew what to say and 
this time it was Jack who spoke. “We 
meant to charge two cents for carrying 
notes,” he said, “and this would be two 
notes, would n’t it ? Would four cents be 
too much ? ” 

“ 1 think not,” said Mrs. Ryerson promptly. 
“1 should say about two cents apiece for 
the notes and a penny more to pay for the 
time you will have to wait while Mrs. Bixby 
is writing hers.” 

“ Five cents ! ” said jack. “ O Ralph ! ” 

Ralph felt that this was somewhat undig- 
nified for a young business man, so he made 
no response, except to say that it would be 
all right. When Mrs. Ryerson went in for 


Earning Money 


117 

her note, however, he winked both eyes 
very fast, grinned broadly, and slapped his 
pocket in a meaning way. 

“ 1 would like the reply promptly, of 
course,” said Mrs. Ryerson. 

“Yes,” said the elder partner of the new 
firm, “we always attend to our business 
affairs promptly ” (that was something he 
had heard Mr. Miller say, you know). 

“We’ll keep it clean, too,” added the 
younger partner. “ We washed our hands 
last thing before we left home, and we 
have n’t got them much dirty since.” 

They walked away feeling intensely busi- 
nesslike and important. When they met 
Sammy Robinson and he said “Hullo!” 
they responded politely and with dignity, 
“ Good morning Sammy !” thereby so as- 
tonishing him that for a minute he could 
do nothing but stare at them and whistle. 
When he saw the note in Ralph’s hand, 
however, he understood. It was not as 
though he had never carried notes or been 
paid for them. 


ii8 The Millers at Pencroft 

That was their first commission and many 
others followed. The summer vacation had 
begun and they played around home as 
much as possible to be within reach of the 
telephone. They did all sorts of things for 
money and were sent for to carry notes, de- 
liver baskets of soiled clothing to washer- 
women, carry lunches, and pick currants 
and cherries. The purses were filling fast 
with dimes when they undertook a business 
of a different kind — what their father called 
a “contract.” 

One of their neighbors had just put a new 
roof on his home, and the ground around it 
was piled high with the old shingles. He 
called the boys over after supper one night. 
“ 1 will give you boys a dollar,” he said, “ if 
you will get every one of these shingles 
cleared away inside of a week. 1 want a bin 
in my woodshed filled for kindling, and you 
may do what you choose with the rest. 
Will you do it ? ” 

“ Let us run home and ask Father first,” 
said Ralph. 


Earning Money 


119 

In two minutes they were back and agreed 
to take the contract. The next morning 
they began, and here they learned that in 
some work one can make double pay. They 
filled the bin first, and then began delivering 
barrowloads to different homes for kindling, 
charging five cents a load and placing it 
wherever directed. When this was all done, 
they had one dollar for the work and sixty 
cents for the shingles sold, besides having 
presented all that were not sold to their 
father. 

“ You need n’t pay us a cent for them. 
Father,” they assured him. “ We just give 
them to you, the same as you give us clothes 
and things.” 

“ And what do you think ? ” Jack added. 
“We have three dollars and ninety-one 
cents in our purses and it won’t be the 
Fourth for five days yet ! ” 


CHAPTER VIII 


ANOTHER FOURTH OF JULY 

O N the morning of July third, Patsy Flan- 
nigan stopped to chat with Ralph as he 
swept off the sidewalk in front of his home, 
jimmy sat on the horse-block and talked 
with jack. After a while the Flannigans 
went off together and Ralph took jimmy’s 
place on the horse-block. Here they talked 
for a long time, Ralph hitting the sidewalk 
from time to time with his outstretched 
broom as they did so. It was evidently a 
matter of deep importance they were dis- 
cussing and they looked very sober. Finally ‘ 
Ralph said, “Well, let’s ask Mother,” and 
they moved toward the house, stopping 
every few steps to say something to each 
other. 

“ Mother ! ” they shouted, as soon as they 
were fairly inside the door. “Mother-r-r!” 


120 


Another Fourth of July 


I2I 


" In a minute,” her voice replied from one 
of the upstairs rooms. 

“1 just believe she ’ll say to do it,” said 
Jack. 

“ I don’t,” said Ralph. 

‘ ‘ Do you think she ’ll say to do the other? ” 
asked jack. 

“ Uh-uh, I think she ’ll tell us we must 
decide for ourselves. That ’s the way she 
’most always does.” 

“And what ’ll you decide if she does ?” 
said Jack. 

“Oh, I don’t know! I wish she’d just 
say ‘ You ’ve got to ’ more times, when I 
can’t make up my mind.” 

“That’s the way Ben Stuart’s mother 
does,” said Jack. “ She never lets him de- 
cide a thing — she just won’t let him — and so 
he hardly ever lets on to her what he wants 
to do till he ’s done it.” 

“Well, you needn’t think I want our 
mother to be like his. Jack Miller,” said 
Ralph. “ She ’s cross, that ’s what she is, 
and she just more than gives it to him.” 


122 


The Millers at Pencroft 


The boys went for their purses and had 
the money all spread out on the sitting- 
room table when Mrs. Miller came quickly 
down the stairs. “ Let me get my darning- 
bag and then 1 will listen to you,” she said. 
“ Now, little men, go ahead.” 

“ Well,” said Ralph, as though he did not 
know exactly how to begin, “you know 
to-morrow is the Fourth and we have four 
dollars and twenty cents earned.” 

“Yes.” 

“ Might n’t we better spend it now for 
our fireworks?” asked Ralph. Yet he did 
not look at all joyful as he asked it. 

“ I suppose it is time to buy whatever you 
wish for the Fourth,” answered his mother, 
measuring off a length of darning cotton and 
picking up her needle. “ Perhaps, though, 
you wanted to use part of the money for 
something else. Is that it ? Four dollars is 
a great deal to spend for fireworks, is n’t 
it ? And they will be all gone in just one 
day.” 

“ Don’t you want us to spend it for that ? ” 


Another Fourth of July 123 

asked Jack. “That is what we earned it 
for.” 

“Certainly, if you wish,” replied Mrs. 
Miller, beginning her mending. “Only I 
thought you might have found some other 
use for the money which you preferred.” 

There was a long silence, while the boys 
looked at their money and Mrs. Miller went 
on cheerfully with her mending. 

“Patsy and jimmy Flannigan’s Uncle 
Mike gave them two dollars each last night 
before' he went away,” said jack. “He 
lives out West, you know, and he is very 
rich. Patsy says some weeks he makes as 
much as fifteen dollars, and he has n’t any 
boys of his own.” 

“Is that so?” exclaimed Mrs. Miller. 
“ That was very kind of him. What are 
they going to do with their money ? ” 

“ That ’s the most interesting part of it,” 
said jack, “ he told ’em to put it in the bank 
for a nest-egg. He said that was how he 
got to be so rich.” 

“A nest-egg,” explained Ralph, “means 


124 The Millers at Pencroft 

that you are going to put more in, and keep 
putting in and putting in and after a while 
you have enough to buy a pop-corn stand, 
or something. That was what Patsy’s Uncle 
Mike did.” 

“ Patsy is n’t going to save for that, 
though,” said Jack. “ His mother says he ’d 
better save it for college if he ’s so bound to 
go.” 

“ Patsy save his money for college ! ” ex- 
claimed Mrs. Miller, looking startled and 
dropping her scissors. 

“Oh yes,” remarked Ralph in the most 
matter-of-fact way. “ Ever since that day 
last year when he brought over the cake 
and Father said something to him about 
it, he ’s said it was college or bust with 
him.” 

“How old is Patsy now?” asked Mrs. 
Miller. 

“ He ’s twelve,” said both boys together. 

“Well,” said Mrs. Miller, “he is what 1 
call a very wise boy, and if he keeps on 
doing as well as he has done so far Patsy 


Another Fourth of July 125 

will make a great success of life. For what 
is Jimmy saving ? ” 

“ He is n’t sure yet,” replied Jack gravely. 
“ He says when he gets enough he ’s going 
to buy either a pop-corn stand or an auto- 
mobile. Sometimes he thinks he ’ll do one 
and sometimes he thinks he ’ll do the other. 
But he has plenty of time to decide, any- 
how.” 

“Mother,” said Ralph, bound to have it 
over as soon as possible, “what would you 
say to our putting this money in the bank? ” 

“And go without fireworks?” said she. 
“Or would you put in two dollars each and 
spend the rest in firecrackers ? ” 

“We could do that,” said both boys to- 
gether. Before this they had not realized 
that they could reserve a part for the cele- 
bration. 

“ Let ’s do it ! ” exclaimed Jack. “Then 
Jimmy can’t feel any bigger ’n I do.” 

“If you do it,” said Mrs. Miller, “you 
must stick to it and leave the money in the 
bank for a nest-egg until you finish school 


126 


The Millers at Pencroft 


here. And you must keep sweet to-morrow 
if the other boys have more fireworks than 
you.” 

“We will, we will,” shouted the boys. 
“ Let us go right down now and do it, 
before we meet the Flannigan boys again. 
How do you do it ? ” 

“Just go right into the bank and tell the 
gentleman at the little window what you 
wish, and then answer his questions. He 
will give you each a small book to keep. 
Bring those home to me as soon as you 
have bought your firecrackers.” 

“ Come on, Jack,” shouted Ralph, sweep- 
ing his share of the money quickly into his 
purse. “ Let ’s take a short cut and try to 
beat Patsy and jimmy ! ” 

A few minutes later two flushed and 
breathless boys entered the bank. Mr. Field 
himself, the banker, came forward to wait 
upon them, jack dodged behind Ralph, 
overcome by a sudden shyness. “You do 
yours first,” he whispered. 

But Mr. Field had caught sight of the fat 


Another Fourth of July 127 

little purses and understood perfectly. “ Do 
you wish to deposit some money in the 
bank ? ” he asked. 

“Yes, sir,” said Ralph, removing his cap 
and tucking it under his arm. 

“How much is it?” asked Mr. Field, 
taking his pen from above his ear. 

“Two dollars,” replied Ralph, saving out 
a dime and passing the rest up in the purse. 

Mr. Field counted it over, reached for a 
small blank book, wrote a few words, and 
handed it out with a smile. “There you 
are,” he said. “Now you are a real depositor 
of this bank with money ahead. Has Jack 
money to leave also ? ” 
jack smiled and passed his up without a 
word. Everything was so strange in here 
and so different from the stores beside it, that 
he was still shy. 

“Two dollars here! ” remarked Mr. Field. 
“ Did you earn this yourself? ” 
jack nodded and showed his dimples. 

“ Good for you 1 ” said Mr. Field. “ That 
will earn you eight cents a year interest. 1 


128 


The Millers at Pencroft 


wish more boys would learn to put money 
at interest. ” 

“The Flannigan boys are going to,” said 
Jack, finding his voice at last. 

“Are they?” asked Mr. Field. “Well, 
you have the honor of being first, at all 
events,” and he handed out Jack’s book. 

“They started first,” said Jack. “They 
started and told us about it and then we 
thought we ’d do this way ’stead of using 
it all for fireworks. Guess they ’re coming 
now.” 

Outside were Patsy and Jimmy, each try- 
ing to push the other ahead. Ralph rushed 
to the door. “Aw, come in,” he said. “It ’s 
easier ’n anything. Jack and 1 just reposited 
some money.” 

“Cross your heart, did you ?” said Patsy. 

“Yes, two dollars each, same’s you’re 
going to. It was talking to you made us 
think of it. Hurry up now, and then we ’ll 
buy our firecrackers.” 

Mr. Field came again to the little window 
and made out two more bank-books for 


Another Fourth of July 129 

Patsy and Jimmy Flannigan, telling them, as 
he had told the Miller boys, how glad he 
was to see lads starting bank accounts. 
Then the four went to buy firecrackers and 
after that they walked the length of Main 
Street, together, with their bank-books stick- 
ing out of their waist-pockets, printed side 
foremost. 

At the first corner Ben Stuart met them. 
“Where you been ?” he asked. 

“Oh, down to the bank,” replied Patsy. 
“ We Ve been putting in some money, that ’s 
all.” 

“You’re fooling,” said Ben. “Honest 
injun, where have you been ? ” 

“Told you once,” said Patsy. “ Look at 
our bank-books if you don’t believe it.” 

Then the bank-books were taken out and 
passed around, while each young depositor 
felt at least two inches taller than ever 
before. Ben was much impressed. He had 
been saving fireworks for two weeks. 

“What about to-morrow?” he said, 
“ What you going to do then ? ” 


130 The Millers at Pencroft 

“Aw, lots of things,” said Ralph. “We 
got a few firecrackers, but we don’t care so 
much for such things as we used to.” 

“Not near so much,” remarked Jack, 
“jiminy, but 1 used to like them when I 
was a little boy 1 ” 


CHAPTER IX 


MAKING READY FOR A JOURNEY 

H elen had only a few torpedoes this 
year and the little Millers took some 
time to decide how best to celebrate with 
what they had on hand. At first they 
thought they would divide their celebration 
and touch off just so many crackers every 
hour, but in the end they agreed to begin 
the day in the old way and use them as fast 
as they wished until every one was gone. 
Fortunately they slept somewhat later than 
on the last Fourth (you remember what a 
funny time they had then ?) and were able 
to begin celebrating as soon as they were 
dressed. A few of the neighboring children 
came over and the morning was a very 
merry one. 

During dinner Helen discovered that her 
mother had begun packing for the trip North, 


132 The Millers at Pencroft 

and after that nobody cared much more 
about fireworks. “ Everything must be left 
in perfect order here,” said Mrs. Miller. 
“You boys might put the yard in shape this 
afternoon. Of course you do very well 
about keeping things picked up, still there is 
room for improvement.” 

“What does that mean ?” asked Ralph, 
always eager to learn a big word or some 
new expression. 

“It means that things could be made 
better than they are,” she replied. “ In this 
case it means bait-cans under the evergreens, 
a vaulting-pole on the front walk, and a 
brick fireplace with a rusty old stovepipe 
for a chimney. Then there is quite a pile 
of wood to be thrown into the shed and 
stacked neatly there.” 

“ Work like that on the Fourth of July ?” 
said Ralph, who had been “treated” to 
candy by the other boys altogether too 
often that morning and was growing cross 
as a result. “ Work like that on the Fourth ? 
I guess not ! ” 


Making Ready for a Journey 133 

“What is that, my son?” asked Mr. 
Miller. 

Ralph colored up a little, but repeated 
what he had just said. 

“Oh,” said Mr. Miller, “1 never happen 
to have heard any one speak in that way 
before — at least not to me. Let me be sure 
that I understand you. Now if you were 
going fishing 1 suppose you would not think 
it right to dig the bait to-day ? ” 

“I did n’t mean exactly that,” replied 
Ralph. “That would be doing something 
for myself, you know. But I don’t think 
anybody ought to have to work for anybody 
else on Independence Day.” 

This last idea about Independence Day 
had come to him suddenly, so he finished 
with a flourish and held his head very high, 
jack and Helen looked anxiously at their 
father. They knew that their brother was 
acting very badly and they felt ashamed of 
him. They wondered, too, what their father 
would do about it, for in that home the chil- 
dren had been trained to speak respectfully. 


134 The Millers at Pencroft 

Mr. Miller poured vinegar upon his lettuce 
and then added a dash of oil. “That is an 
interesting idea of yours, Ralph,” he re- 
marked mildly, as he replaced the oil cruet 
in the dainty old-fashioned castor. “ 1 think 
we will see how it works out. Mother, 
please do not let Ralph do any work for 
any one else for the rest of the day. Let him 
be quite independent. And of course if he 
is to be that, he must not let any one else 
work for him. Is that right, Ralph ? ” 

Ralph looked somewhat startled to find 
that his rule was expected to work both 
ways, and was secretly sorry that he had 
suggested such a thing, but he was still out 
of humor and unwilling to apologize for what 
he had said, so he nodded and remarked 
that he would “just as soon,” and that “ it 
ought to be a holiday anyhow.” 

When they left the table jack slipped his 
hand into Mr. Miller’s and offered to pick 
up all the litter on the lawn. “ I ’d Just as 
lief as not,” he said, “and then it won’t 
bother you.” 


Making Ready for a Journey 135 

“Thank you. Jack,” said Mr. Miller. 
“ That is very kind of you, but 1 can- 
not let you do what is Ralph’s work. You 
know he wishes to be quite independent 
to-day.” 

So jack picked up his share of the mis- 
placed articles and Ralph went to work on 
a kite, which he meant to make and try in 
the fine breeze then blowing, and afterward 
to carry North with him and fly it there. He 
worked busily for almost an hour, hunting 
up sticks and cutting them down to the right 
size, getting his paper out and cutting that, 
finding a ball of twine which he had mislaid, 
and tearing up a piece of old cloth to use for 
the tail. This was not more than a quarter 
as much as he needed, so he rushed into the 
house for more. 

“ Mother,” he cried. “ Mother-r-r, where 
are you ? ” 

“ In my bedroom,” she answered. 

“ Oh, are you packing ? ” he exclaimed, as 
he stood in the open doorway and saw the 
two large trunks standing there. “ Have 


The Millers at Pencroft 


136 

you put any of my things in ? I see some 
of Jack’s.” 

“No, I have packed nothing of yours,” 
his mother replied. “What did you wish 
of me?” 

“ Oh, I am making just a dandy kite,” said 
Ralph. “ I ’m going to fly it some this after- 
noon, and then I ’m going to take it to Pen- 
croft and use it there. Only will you please 
give me some more cloth for the tail and ask 
Aurelia to make me a little paste ? ” 

“ My dear boy,” said Mrs. Miller, dropping 
into a chair, “have you already forgotten 
what Father said ? ” 

Ralph looked as though he wanted to cry. 
He followed the pattern of the carpet with 
his foot for a minute and then said, “ Can’t 
you tell me where to find my own cloth ? 
And 1 can make my own paste if you will 
tell me how.” 

“There is no cloth where you could find 
it,” replied his mother, “and you know that 
Aurelia has not allowed you to use her stove 
since the day you and jack tried to make 


Making Ready for a Journey 137 

candles and got it so covered with grease. I 
am very sorry for you.” 

“ Oh, that ’s all right,” said Ralph, “ I don’t 
care so much about the old kite anyhow.” 
Yet he went out-of-doors and threw himself 
face downward on the lawn and lay there for 
a long time. Helen came tiptoeing over to 
where he was and jumped at him and said 
“ Boo ! ” but he was too much discouraged 
to pretend to be frightened. She stretched 
out on the grass beside him and made him 
tell her over and over all the things which 
their father and mother had told her about 
Trelago Point and what the children could 
do there. 

“Mother says I must not get any dirtier 
than 1 can help before we go,” said she. 
“ Most all my dresses are packed now.” 

“Are they?” asked Ralph. “Are Jack’s 
things packed too? ” 

“Mother had some of his fings in her 
arms,” said Helen. “ I guess she packed 
them.” 

Poor Ralph 1 Of course if he had waited 


138 The Millers at Pencroft 

and thought a bit he would have known 
that the next day would be quite soon 
enough for packing his clothing, but he 
had a sudden, wild fear that his disrespect 
at the dinner-table would end in his not 
being taken to Pencroft, and he buried his 
face in Helen’s pink gingham lap and sobbed 
and sobbed and sobbed. 

At last he grew quiet, got over his fear, and 
decided to bear his punishment as bravely 
as possible. However, he had a forlorn 
afternoon, for it seemed as though every- 
thing he wanted to do meant either his 
working for somebody else or somebody 
else working for him. He had never wanted 
to work so in all his life! He saw Aurelia 
come out with a pan and pick up chips with 
which to start her fire for supper. He knew 
he could fill that big pan in two minutes if 
he tried, but he dared not try. Mrs. Miller 
called Helen into the house and then sent 
her off with a note to Mrs. Flynn, Maggie’s 
mother. He had not been over there for a 
long time and would have dearly loved to 



He had a forlorn afternoon. 





4 


Making Ready for a Journey 139 

carry the note. He noticed how tired his 
mother looked and wondered if he could not 
fetch and carry articles for her to pack if it 

were not for . Then he went into the 

house and straight to his room. 

“I may do work for myself,” he said, 
“and 1 guess 1 ’m dirty enough for a good 
clean-up. It will please Father, too. He 
always says it helps him rest to see good, 
clean children at the table.” 

A few minutes later his mother heard the 
water running in the bath-tub. The Miller 
house had been flooded once by somebody’s 
carelessness with the faucets, and she rushed 
into the hall. “ Who is filling the tub? ” she 
called. 

“1 am,” answered Ralph. “I am going 
to take a bath, so 1 will look clean at supper- 
time. You don’t mind, do you?” 

“No indeed,” she said. “The cleaner the 
better. That is an excellent plan.” 

“ I just bet she knows how sorry I am,” 
said Ralph to himself. “She always seems 
to find out without folks telling her. Guess 


140 The Millers at Pencroft 

r 11 shampoo, too, just for luck. Wonder if 
Father will notice? ” 

It would be too much to tell all that boy 
did. He bathed, shampooed, dressed him- 
self most carefully, rumpled up his bed by 
accident and made it all over again, put 
things in apple-pie order in the bath-room 
and went down to supper when the bell 
rang, shiny with soap and fragrant with 
patchouli from his own little bottle. The 
best part of the surprise, though, was some- 
thing that he had hardly planned at all, for 
he walked straight to where his father stood 
and said, “Please forgive me for being so 
disrespectful this noon. 1 will try never to 
be again.” 

“Very well, my son,” said Mr. Miller, 
with a slight break in his voice. “ 1 felt 
sure you would apologize before night, and 
1 forgive you. But, of course, you must 
live up to what 1 said about independence 
just the same.” 

“ Oh, 1 don’t mind that now,” cried Ralph 
joyfully. “ It was the feeling mean inside 


Making Ready for a Journey 141 

and knowing you were sad that hurt. I’ll 
wait on myself.” 

His place at the table was not set, and he 
got his plate and silverware. He ate only 
those things which had been cooked or pre- 
pared before dinner, and so he missed the 
best part of the supper, but he ate bread, 
butter, and cheese, drank his glass of milk 
with a smiling face, and was the happiest 
of the family from then until his bed-time. 

The next morning he took a pencil and a 
tablet and made a list of all the odd jobs 
that he could recall, wrote down what his 
mother could suggest besides, and then got 
his father to add half a dozen more. 

“Now,” he said after breakfast, “I am 
going to put on my overalls and do every 
one of those things before 1 play a bit. 1 ’m 
going to get rid of that mean feeling 1 have 
had inside of me since yesterday.” 

It was a busy time tor everybody. The 
bedding and little things for the cottage had 
been sent by freight several days before, 
but there was the house to be left in perfect 


142 The Millers at Pencroft 

order, there was all the clothing for the 
Millers and Aurelia to be packed in trunks, 
and there were playthings to take for rainy 
days. Each child was given a small, light 
travelling bag, and limited to what he could 
carry in that. 

“Ido wo^fink,” said Helen, “that my 
dolls will be happy if they have to be shut 
up in a satchel on the cars.” 

“You’d better put them in just the 
same,” said Ralph as he passed her with his 
arms full. “ Perhaps Mother will let you 
take them out.” 

“ Do you s’pose she will ? ” asked Helen. 
“ Here you dear sweet little Gladys Dorothy 
jane, come and get dressed up to go on the 
cars. Did you know that your grandmother 
has builded a beautiful new cottage up on the 
big Bay and that we are going to live there all 
summer ? You must wear your sunbonnet. 
Yes, you must, or else you ’ll be dreffully 
sunburned and have to have your face all 
done up the way jack’s neck was that 
time. There ! Now you look quite good 


Making Ready for a Journey 143 

enough. Now I ’ll fix you, Arabella. Where 
is your best waist ? 1 b’leeve you left it over 
to Janice’s the last time you were there. 
Such a careless doll ! 1 must go right over 
there this minute to get it.” 

She slipped away and nobody saw her go. 
Janice had gone over to play with Sallie, so 
on to Sallie’s she went. Mrs. Field had sent 
the children downtown on an errand, so 
Helen followed after them. And then there 
was a dancing bear down by the hotel, and 
she watched him and followed him until the 
noon whistle reminded her how long she 
had been gone. 

The family had not worried about her this 
time, as they had done when she disap- 
peared during the spring cleaning, yet Mrs. 
Miller looked much relieved when she saw 
her small daughter hurrying up the front 
steps. After dinner Helen was tied securely 
to a camperdown elm in the yard, with 
enough rope so that she could walk out into 
the sunshine or stay under the shade. 

“We take such an early train in the 


144 The Millers at Pencroft 

morning,” said Mrs. Miller, “ that everything 
must be done to-day, and you children must 
play at home. Call your friends over if you 
wish, but stay in the yard. I do not want 
to have to tie my whole family to trees like 
a lot of horses. ” 

They stayed. 


CHAPTER X 


STARTING NORTH 

“ yyOORAY ! HoorsLy ! IVe go to-day ! ” 
shouted two small boys as they 
scrambled out of bed on the morning of July 
sixth. 

“ Hooray! ” repeated Ralph, “ Hoo — jack, 
did Mother say to put on our clean clothes 
when we got up ? ” 

“Yup!” replied Jack, whirling a long 
black stocking around his head. “Shoes 
and stockings, too, but I don’t care ! Hoo- 
ray ! Hooray ! IVe go to-day ! She said 
we could tie some of her old kitchen aprons 
around our necks as soon ’s we got down- 
stairs and keep ’em on till we go to the 
station.” 

“Jiminy crickets ! ” said Ralph, pulling a 
stocking on in such haste that he got it hind 


145 


146 The Millers at Pencroft 

side before and poked his toe into the heel. 
“ Jiminy crickets, but it ’s a dandy day ! ” 

“ S’pose Mother ’d want us to take time 
to wash this morning?” asked Jack. “It 
would save a lot of time if we did n’t— about 
twenty minutes, 1 should say.” 

“Ho! Twenty minutes ! Twenty min- 
utes!” exclaimed Ralph, “1 can wash in 
two any day.” 

“Yes, and get sent away from the table 
because your hands are dirty afterward,” 
retorted jack. “ You just rinch your hands 
under the faucet and then wipe ’em off on 
the towel when you ’re in a hurry. 1 ’ve 
seen you ! Anyhow, if it does n’t take me 
quite twenty minutes to wash it seems as 
long as that.” 

“Well, we’ll have to wash, anyhow,” 
said Ralph. “You know Mother says always 
to wash, even if we have had hot baths the 
night before.” 

Breakfast was not a hurried meal, for that 
was never allowed, but it was a very queer- 
looking one. 


Starting North 


147 


“ You might ’s well eat up the scraps as to 
send ’em to the Hathaway chickens,” re- 
marked Aurelia, as she entered the dining- 
room with several small dishes of odds and 
ends. “ 1 ’ve got the chicken-pail washed 
up anyhow, an’ it would n’t be safe to trust 
one o’ the children out 0 ’ sight long enough 
to carry it over this mornin’ if I had n’t. 
Besides, there ain’t any too much food left, 
now that 1 ’ve that whoppin’ great lunch 
put up.” 

“ Please give me another spoon, Aurelia,” 
said Helen, while Ralph exclaimed over find- 
ing his butter put on the edge of his plate. 

“Guess you’ll have to make out with 
what you have,” replied Aurelia. “ The rest 
o’ the silver is all packed away, an’ I won’t 
have time to wash a single dish more’n 
1 ’ve got to.” 

After breakfast there was about an hour in 
which the children could amuse themselves 
in the front rooms or on the front porch. 
Then all were to start for the train. Helen 
was missing once and strayed off in the 


148 The Millers at Pencroft 

direction of the barn, but that was for only a 
minute. Of course, the three travelling bags 
full of toys had to be opened, looked over, 
and relocked several times, and after that 
the children sat in a solemn and happy row 
on the front steps, the kitchen aprons which 
they were still wearing spread out to protect 
their clean suits. Jack had tried dusting off 
the steps with his handkerchief before sitting 
down. It seemed to make very little differ- 
ence with the steps, and when he looked at 
his handkerchief afterward it was a dingy 
and streaked brown. 

“ Oh, dear! ” he said. “ 1 was trying to 
keep speshually clean and now 1 have got 
my handkerchief speshually dirty. It seems 
to me 1 just can’t be without getting some- 
thing against something else! First it was 
my shoes getting dusty if 1 run around and 
now it is my trousers if I sit down.” 

‘ ‘ It ain’t sittin’ but wigglin’ that makes the 
worst trouble,” explained Aurelia, as she 
stepped to the door behind them and set her 
satchel down. “ You just hand me that hand- 


Starting North 


149 


kerchief, Jack, and 1 ’ll take care of it. Here ’s 
another,” and she tossed out a brightly 
printed one which she snatched from the 
top of a trunk which stood waiting to be 
strapped. 

After that there was no wriggling. In- 
stead they sat very still and looked at the 
pictures on the handkerchief, spelling out 
the names and wondering if by any happy 
chance they could see any of the beasts 
pictured there prowling through those beau- 
tiful, strange northern woods to which they 
were going. Once they heard a freight- 
train whistling for Winthrop and had a panic 
for fear it might be the passenger train which 
they were to take. Only jack’s resolve not 
to wriggle kept him from going at once to 
find his father and question him. Ralph 
settled it at last by looking over his shoulder 
until he could see the hall clock. 

“It’s only half-past eight,” he said, “and 
our train does n’t come till nine.” 

At last Mr. Miller helped the drayman load 
the trunks, Aurelia whisked the aprons off 


The Millers at Pencroft 


150 

the children, and Mrs. Miller came to the 
door flushed and hurried, but as cheerful 
as ever. “All ready!” she said, and she 
glanced them over as only a mother can, 
giving a tweak here and a jerk there, setting 
a cap straight and smoothing out a wrinkled 
collar. Mr. Miller locked the door behind 
them and the procession started. 

Perhaps you have sometime been in a 
railway station waiting for a train to carry 
you off on a pleasure trip. If you have, you 
remember how long the time seemed, and 
yet how fearful you were lest the train 
should come before the tickets were all pur- 
chased and the trunks checked. Luckily, 
this train was on time and they soon started. 
The train was a very ordinary one, stopping 
at all the little stations, and they had seats 
in the back end of the last car, where the 
children could stand and look out of the rear 
door when they tired of sitting. 

just as the train was slowing down for 
the third station Mr. Miller noticed a queer 
squeaking sound from somewhere below. 


Starting North 151 

“ It sounds to me as though something were 
the matter with a car wheel on this last 
truck,” he said. “ I hope we are not going 
to have trouble. Just listen, Christine. 
Don’t you hear it squeak ? ” 

“ Yes,” replied Mrs. Miller, “ ! hear it very 
plainly,” and she turned her head to listen 
better. Just then the cars stopped and the 
squeaking went on. “ What is that ? ” she 
exclaimed. “ Helen, what have you in your 
bag ? ” 

Helen looked very uncomfortable. “ 1 
have a good many diff-runt fings,” she 
replied. 

“Have you anything alive?” asked her 
father. 

“ f/A-huh, I have two fings that are alive,” 
she said. “ I put them in this morning.” 

“ Kittens ? ” asked her mother and father 
together, while her brothers stood in the 
aisle to listen better. 

“Yes, kittens. Janice gave them to me 
yesterday to ’member her by, and 1 knew 
Nebutadnezzar could n’t take care of them 


152 The Millers at Pencroft 

because he never had any kittens and he 
would n’t know how. So I put them in 
with my dollies to keep them from being 
lonesome.” 

Mrs. Miller leaned her head back with a 
look of utter helplessness. “ Cats in a travel- 
ling bag ! ” said she. 

Mr. Miller hurried to unfasten the bag, 
and the boys^well, the boys just giggled. 
People all over the car began to rise up in 
their seats as the opening of the bag made 
the mewing seem louder. Aurelia paused 
on her way back from the ice-water tank. 
“ For the land’s sake!” she said, ‘‘What 
won’t that child do next 1 ” 

“ Don’t you fink it was nice of me to bring 
them ? ” asked Helen. “ 1 was going to have 
them for a s’prise for you when we got 
there, and 1 did n’t want you to know about 
it so soon.” 

‘‘ Helen Miller,” said her father sternly, 
‘‘ do you mean to say that you thought we 
would allow you to pack those kittens if we 
knew about it ? ” 


Starting North 


153 


“No,” replied Helen truthfully. “1 
fought you ’d tell me that you ’d ’vise me to 
leave them at home. But you said 1 could 
choose my own playfings and pack them, 
so 1 packed the kittens, too. Are n’t they 
playfings, 1 ’d like to know ? ” 

“ Well,” said Mr. Miller after a pause, “ 1 
think we shall have to see this through. 
Remember though, if we take them up to 
Pencroft we shall not bring them back. You 
will have to give them to some little girl up 
there to remember you by.” 

So the bags were repacked and arranged 
to give the kittens one to themselves, and 
the train rushed on, stopping now and then 
at the small towns along the line, until they 
reached the junction where they had to 
wait from eleven until two. Here they 
found a shady bank by the side of a river 
and ate their picnic lunch, while the chil- 
dren took off their shoes and stockings and 
romped on the grass. The kittens were car- 
ried up to a neighboring farmhouse and fed 
with milk until their furry sides bulged out 


154 The Millers at Pencroft 

like pin-cushions. Mr. Miller pulled out a 
magazine and read aloud to his wife, while 
Aurelia watched the children and the chil- 
dren watched the kittens. 

From the junction they took a very swift 
train, the Northern Express, and a few hours 
on it brought them to a city on the bay, 
where they were to spend the night. It 
was cool there and they got the smell of 
the water before they reached the hotel. 

“ 1 like the way the air feels in my nose,” 
said Helen, “and in my froat, too.” 

“ 1 like the way it feels in my lungs,” said 
Ralph “ and 1 don’t see why it is so different 
from what we have at home. 1 always 
thought that air was just air and that was 
all there was about it.” 

“Why, Ralph,” said Jack, “didn’t you 
know there was hot air and cold air? Then 
don’t you s’pose there are other kinds, too ? ” 

Now they reached the hotel and climbed 
out of the delightful rattling, jolting, lurch- 
ing omnibus which had brought them from 
the station, and were met by several youths 


Starting North 


155 


in blue suits with brass buttons, who seized 
their hand-baggage (all but the bag with the 
kittens, which Mr. Miller kept) and showed 
them to their rooms. 

It was all very strange to Aurelia and the 
children, who had two rooms across the 
hall from Mr. and Mrs. Miller, and until Mrs. 
Miller came over to explain about the elec- 
tric bell and the new way of emptying the 
marble wash-bowl they hardly knew how to 
manage. The rooms were large and beauti- 
fully furnished, and Aurelia was fearful that 
the children might do something wrong. 
Ralph had begun by accidentally calling for 
the chamber-maid, the bell-boy, and ice- 
water before they had been there three 
minutes, so it is not queer that Aurelia 
worried. 

“ You boys put your hands in your pock- 
ets an’ keep ’em there,” said she. “1 ’m goin’ 
to clean Helen up an’ I don’t want to have 
to watch you every minute. You can walk 
around as much as you choose, but keep 
your hands in your pockets.” 


The Millers at Pencroft 


156 

Then the boys looked out of the window 
until Jack’s nose began to itch. He spoke 
of it and Ralph began to have the same 
trouble. “Aurelia,” he said, “won’t you 
let us rub our noses? They Itch dread- 
fully.” 

“ Rub ’em together then,” replied Aurelia. 
“There’s usually more than one way of 
doin’ a thing.” 

It was not long before the whole family 
were clean and ready for supper, the first 
meal that the children had ever taken in a 
large hotel, and although they were too 
well-behaved to stare around or talk about 
what seemed strange to them, their eyes 
grew very big and round and they had a 
great deal to talk over afterward. When 
supper was finished they walked down to 
the bay and sat for half an hour on a de- 
serted dock, watching the waves splash 
against the shore and a family of minks 
playing around the timbers under another 
near-by dock. 

When they were well tucked in bed, the 


Starting North 


157 


boys in their room and the door open into 
the one where Helen lay in Aurelia’s bed, 
Ralph said, “Aurelia 1 ” 

“Yes,” said she. 

“ May we each talk just once ? ” 

“Just exactly once,” she replied, “an’ 
then you must go to sleep.” 

“ Well,” said Ralph, “ Let ’s each of us tell 
the most interesting thing we’ve seen to- 
day, Aurelia and all. The thing that inter- 
ested me most was seeing the engines take 
water there at the junction, when we ate 
our lunch, four of them one after another.” 

“1 liked the little minkies best,” said 
Helen. 

jack giggled. “The most intestering 
thing I know,” said he, “was those pop- 
overs 1 had for supper. They were so big 
and fat and brown, but the girl who made 
them forgot to put in any inside ! 1 rather 
think she ’ll feel cheap about it when she 
finds out ! ” 

“Land sakes!” said Aurelia. “What 
next ! Popovers ain’t made to have any 


158 The Millers at Pencroft 

inside to ’em ! The queerest thing I ’ve seen 
is cool weather like this in July. I ’ve heard 
tell that it was cool up here by the big lakes, 
even in summer-time, but dear me ! I never 
half believed it, an’ even when your mother 
said so I kind o’ thought she was jokin’. 
Now you ’ve had your turn at talkin’ so go 
to sleep.” 

And they did. 


CHAPTER XI 


THE STEAMER AND THE COTTAGE 

A T half-past eight the next morning Mrs. 

Miller, Aurelia, and the children walked 
to the dock where the steamer lay. Mr. 
Miller had gone down-town to order sup- 
plies to be sent up on the boat with them. 

“ There ’s the boat, — I see her I ” shouted 
Jack. “ Oh, w #7 she big though ! Isn’t 
she big! ” 

“Jiminy crickets!” said Ralph and then 
words failed him. 

“Is that great big white fing a boat?” 
asked Helen, hardly believing what she 
heard. 

“That is the steamboat, my little girl,” 
answered her mother. “You saw the 
picture 1 sent home last year. Is not this 
exactly like the picture ? ” 

159 


i6o The Millers at Pencroft 

“ It’s like it, but it is so big,” said Helen, 
“ how do you get on top of it ? Do you 
have to climb up a ladder ? ” 

“ Why, don’t you remember Helen ?’' 
said Jack. “ Mother told us all about it last 
year. There is a doorway in the side and 
we have to walk into it on the crowd-plank.” 

“Gang-plank,” corrected Mrs. Miller. 

“ Gang-plank, then,” said jack. “ A gang 
is a crowd and 1 guess that mixed me.” 

Ralph ran ahead, and when the rest came 
up he was standing on the dock beside the 
steamer with his hands deep in his pockets, 
watching the laborers roll barrels of freight 
down the one gangway. Everybody asked 
him some question or other as they came 
up, but he appeared not to hear any of them. 
He stood as motionless as a statue for a long 
time and then he said, but without moving 
hand or foot, “ jiminy crickets ! I wish Lu- 
cinda could see it. I don’t believe she knew 
how big it was any more than I did.” 

Mrs. Miller took him gently by the collar 
and steered him into the steamer, which 


The Steamer and the Cottage i6i 

was really a rather small one, past the barrels 
and up the steep and narrow stairs to the 
upper deck. Ralph stumbled obediently 
along, never looking where he stepped, and 
bumping against everything near which he 
had to pass. He had no thought for him- 
self — only for the interesting new sights 
around him. When he had been seated on 
the upper deck a few minutes he waked up 
enough to ask questions, and how they did 
pour out ! 

They all stood in the bow, or front end of 
the boat, which happened to point toward 
shore, and watched for Mr. Miller to come. 
There was hurry and bustle on the dock be- 
low, drags driving up with boxes and crates 
of furniture, baggage wagons bringing 
trunks and satchels, an occasional carriage 
with passengers for the boat, and people on 
foot hurrying to and fro. Helen was very 
anxious about her father and Aurelia had 
to comfort her. 

“Dear me!” she said. “Anybody ’d 
think you had a good-for-nothin’ regular old 


i 62 


The Millers at Pencroft 


slow-poke of a father, to hear you talk. 
Doesn’t he always get home to eat his 
meals? Doesn’t he always get home to 
sleep ? Did you ever hear of his missin’ a 
train ? He ain’t a lazy man an’ he ain’t a 
stupid man. Ain’t a mud-turtle either or 
a caterpillar or any other slow-crawlin’ kind 
o’ critter.” 

“ O Aurelia,” exclaimed Helen, forget- 
ting her anxiety as soon as caterpillars were 
mentioned, “ do you ’member that cute little 
caterpillar 1 found at the junction yesterday ? 
Did n’t it have the dearest pink face ? Where 
do you s’pose it is by now ? ” 

“ 1 ’ll guess it is on a beautiful great clover 
blossom,” said Aurelia. “ Where do you 
guess it is ? ” 

“ 1 ’m not going to guess,” remarked 
Helen, “ 1 am going to fink. 1 fink it is 
sitting down on a nice soft piece of moss 
and having a party with some other little 
caterpillars.” 

“And what do you suppose — ’’Aurelia 
began, but Helen caught the sound of her 


The Steamer and the Cottage 163 

father’s voice and slid down from Aurelia’s 
lap to run to him. 

Then came the sound of shouting and run- 
ning and thumping and the grating noise 
when the gang-plank was drawn in, a stout 
pleasant-faced man in dark blue with brass 
buttons climbed into the little house on the 
fore part of the upper deck, the whistle 
blew, bells rang somewhere down below, 
there was a puffing, splashing sound and 
the boat really began to move. 

“ She ’s going ! ” cried Ralph. “ We ’re 
riding on a steamboat ! Hooray ! Please 
now may 1 go to see the engine ? ” 

And that was where he spent most of his 
morning, close beside the open door of the 
engine room, watching the smooth sliding 
to and fro of the polished shafts, the slight 
motion of the hand on the steam-gauge, and 
the whirling of the ball-governor. 

He thought the five brass oil-cans of differ- 
ent shapes and sizes most interesting, and 
when the engineer selected one with which 
to oil some particular part of the engine, he 


The Millers at Pencroft 


164 

just rammed his hands deeper down into 
his pockets and wished he were old enough 
and wise enough to be oiling his engine 
with his shiny oil-cans. The engineer was 
friendly, too; asked him his name and 
age, and wondered if he would like to be 
an engineer when he grew up. 

“Oh, would n’t 1!” replied Ralph. 
“ Why, 1 ’d rather be an engineer than any- 
thing else in the world.” 

“Well, you keep right on feeling that 
way,” said the man, “ and you ’ll be one all 
right.” 

“Will I?” said Ralph, turning to his 
father. 

“ I think so,” was his reply. “ But then 
you may change your mind. You may 
want to be a circus rider or something of 
the sort.” And Mr. Miller’s eyes twinkled. 

“ \J\\-uh! ” said Ralph. “ I think 1 ’d feel 
more comfortable in overalls than in tights.” 

The boat did not reach Trelago Point until 
half-past eleven, and there was much to see 
during the trip. There was the engine, of 


The Steamer and the Cottage 165 

course, and there was the beautiful splash- 
ing, glittering mass of foam and spray thrown 
out behind the steamer by the screw, which 
drove it forward through the water. There 
was the pilot-house on the upper deck, where 
the stout man in blue cloth and brass buttons 
stood, always looking straight ahead and 
turning the big wheel in front of him to the 
right or to the left in order to steer the boat. 
Then there was the funny little kitchen 
where a young man in a white coat and cap 
was getting dinner ready for the crew. They 
had fish for dinner, and the children saw 
him catch the fish with stout trolling lines 
from the stern of the boat. 

The boat stopped at two landings before 
reaching the Point, and there were crowds 
of gay people on the docks. After they left 
the first they passed a great company of 
gulls sitting soberly on the rocks in the 
shallow water. Then for a time they were 
so far from shore that the air was very cold 
and they all went down into the queer little 
cabin, about as large as one of the bedrooms 


The Millers at Pencroft 


1 66 

at home, where the seats and the windows 
reminded them of horse-cars, and everything 
seemed slanting or curved instead of straight 
and square-cornered. Through the win- 
dows they saw a number of small, unpainted 
wooden houses, and Mr. Miller told them 
that it was an Indian village. 

Then the captain came around and told 
them he could put them off at a new dock 
less than a mile from their cottage, and that 
they would be there in ten minutes. They 
gathered up the things they had to carry, 
tucked the kittens which Helen was holding 
back into their grass-lined satchel, and stood 
watching the buildings on the shore grow 
larger and larger as the boat drew nearer to 
them. 

“That is Trelago village at the left,” said 
Mr. Miller. “That long yellow building is 
the store where we send for things, and 
there is the church we shall probably attend. 
The other one is the Indian church.” 

“ You did n’t tell us what kind of store it 
is,” said Jack. “ What do they sell there ? ” 


« 


The Steamer and the Cottage 167 

Mr. Miller smiled and took a long breath. 
“They sell groceries,” he replied, “grocer- 
ies, dry goods, boots and shoes, crockery, 
hardware, drugs, ready-made clothing, and 
all sorts of Indian work. Besides that, it is 
the express office, telegraph office, and post- 
otfice, and the headquarters for the circulat- 
ing library. It is quite a place.” 

“The man that owns that store must be 
pretty rich,” said Ralph. “ I should think 
he could go to Europe whenever he wanted 
to.” 

“ He came from Europe,” said Mr. Miller. 
“ He is a Swede.” 

They did not stop at the village dock but 
passed by to the one at the Point. The gang- 
plank was run out again and they walked 
on to the dock. All their baggage and the 
box of supplies were set out also, the big 
ropes around the posts were cast loose and 
drawn into the steamer, the screw turned 
around very fast, the boat glided away and 
the Millers were on Trelago Point at last, a 
mile or so from the new cottage and no 


i68 


The Millers at Pencroft 


omnibus in sight. Neither was there any 
cottage or hotel to be seen from where they 
stood. They were alone in the woods with 
only a glimpse of the village a mile away to 
cheer them. 

“ Whee-ee-ee ! ” said Ralph. “Just look 
at those perch under the dock ! ” and he 
threw himself down on it and wriggled 
along from one wide crack to another in his 
efforts to see through. Aurelia promptly set 
him on his feet again. 

“just try to keep a-lookin’ half-way decent 
till you get up to the cottage,” she said. 
“ After that you can put on common duds 
and run loose for a spell.” 

“ Oh, look at that chipmunk 1 ” cried Jack. 
“ Right there ! No over there I Now he ’s 
gone ! Why did n’t you look quicker when 
1 told you to ? ” 

“I’m hungry,” said Helen, and that re- 
minded the boys that they were also. 

Luckily at this moment they heard a rattle 
of wheels and clanking of harness some- 
where back in the woods and the voice of 


The Steamer and the Cottage 169 

a man talking to his team. Then a herdic 
was drawn up beside the dock and a tall, 
loose-jointed driver jumped to the ground. 

“ Reckon you ’re the Millers, ain’t you ? ” 
he said. “ Heard you was liable to come 
to-day. Your builder told me. Would a’ 
ben here before but my whiffle-tree come 
loose up in the woods yander an’ 1 had to 
turn in an’ hunt up the bolt ’fore 1 could fix 
it. If it ben in some places 1 ’d a’ lost my 
passengers — (Get in. Sissy !)— but can ’t lose 
’em here unless they take it into their heads 
to walk around an’ carry their trunks, an’ 
there ain’t many of ’em does ! Let the boys 
ride up front with me, ma’am ? All right. 
Pile up boys ! ” and so the talkative Mr. 
Underwood rattled on, while he helped in 
passengers and tucked suit-cases and satch- 
els in all the extra spaces. 

“ I’ll come right back to fetch your trunks 
an’ boxes, soon ’s I ’ve hitched my team to 
the truck,” he said. “ Hello, guess you’d 
better take this basket ! Look ’s though 
there might be somepin to eat in it. Now 1 


170 The Millers at Pencroft 

guess we ’re all right. Get ap ! All right 
boys ? Plenty o’ room ? How ’re you, 
Sissy ? ” 

He got no answer. Helen was too happy 
to talk. They drove for nearly a mile on 
the beach road, where the little waves came 
almost to the horses’ feet on the one side, 
and on the other the ground rose in a high 
terrace covered with all sorts of dainty wild 
things : roses, bluebells, snowberries, bear- 
berries, and many others that they had 
never seen before. There were cottages, 
too, the first ones high up on the terrace 
with the tips of the beach fir-trees just 
even with their front porches. The chil- 
dren had never seen houses built in such 
places, and they were hardly through 
exclaiming over these when they came 
to the end of the terrace and saw the 
dearest little log cabin down close by the 
road 

“Oh, look at that house,” said jack. 
“Just look at it! 1 guess the man who 
built that was in a good deal of a hurry. 


The Steamer and the Cottage 171 

Why, it ’s just made of trees, that ’s what it 
is — trees with their bark on ! ” 

“There’s the hotel! ’’cried Ralph. “It 
looks just like the picture in the book — just 
exactly I ” 

“ Look at those little girls making mud- 
pies ! ” exclaimed Helen, able to speak at 
last. “ 1 wonder if they will play with me 
after a while.” 

Mr. Underwood stopped his team long 
enough to hand out a bag of mail to the hotel 
clerk, and while he was doing so Helen 
heard one of the mud-pie children say to the 
other, “ Those must be the people who own 
that new cottage. Aren’t you glad they 
have a little girl ? ” 

“ Don’t you s’pose she knows you have 
a couple of boys ? ” said Jack to his father. 
“ 1 wish somebody would be glad you have 
us. 1 have n’t seen a single boy yet.” 

“ Don’t you worry, sonny,” said Mr. 
Underwood, “ there ’s a whole raft of boys 
around where your cottage is, an’ they’ll 
look you up mighty quick. Everybody gets 


172 The Millers at Pencroft 

acquainted with everybody else up here. 
Now then we ’re most to your place.” 

They passed a number of cottages where 
people sat on the porches reading and sew- 
ing and every one looked out in a friendly 
way at them. Half a dozen boys on the 
beach looked up and grinned. One little 
fellow called out “ Hullo 1 ” 

Ralph and Jack looked quickly at their 
father. He nodded and they shouted back 
“ Hullo ! We ’re the Miller boys.” 

Mr. Underwood drove on, halted, and 
backed up to a new house at the end of the 
line of cottages. “ Guess here ’s where you 
get out,” said he. 

“Is this truly where we are to live?” 
asked the three children in one breath. 

“Truly,” said Mrs. Miller as she sprang 
to the ground. “ Welcome to Pencroft ! ” 


CHAPTER XII 


PENCROFT 

O F course the first thing to do was to go 
all over the cottage. It had a large 
living-room in front with a brick fireplace, 
back of this were a large chamber and 
the dining-room, with the staircase running 
up between them. Back of the dining- 
room was the kitchen, and back of the 
bedroom was the large kitchen porch. A 
wide porch ran across the whole front of 
the house. An open staircase ran from the 
kitchen to the upper back hall, and on the 
second floor were four good-sized chambers 
and two small halls. On the back porch 
were many great bundles and crates ad- 
dressed to Mr. Miller. 

Aurelia took off her hat and gloves and 
laid them on the stairs beside her parasol. 

I7J 


174 The Millers at Pencroft 

She rolled her sleeves to the elbow and care- 
fully turned up the skirt of her travelling 
dress and pinned it. “Where’ll we begin?” 
said she. 

“We will begin in the middle of the 
sitting-room floor by eating our dinner 
there,” replied Mrs. Miller. 

Everybody helped. The paper which Mr. 
Miller had been reading on the boat was 
opened out carefully and spread on the floor, 
and then the basket of food was unpacked. 
A pail of milk was brought in from a shady 
corner of the porch (the milkman had been 
ordered to leave some there, you know), 
and Ralph and Jack hunted out enough wide, 
clean shingles from the lumber-pile outside 
to use for plates. They had sandwiches, 
cookies, and plenty of fruit, and Helen picked 
a few ferns and bluebells from the yard to 
put in the middle of the paper. She had 
never had a meal in her own home without 
flowers in the middle of the table, and she saw 
no reason for doing without them now. The 
papers were spread near enough to the bot- 


Pencroft 


175 


tom of the stairs so that Mother could sit 
on the lowest one, and have things passed 
up to her. Aurelia took her share to eat on 
the back porch, Mr. Miller and the boys re- 
moved their hats, and then they all bowed 
their heads and repeated together the verse 
from the “ Sunday dishes,” which they had 
learned to love. 

‘‘Some have meat that cannot eat, 

And some have none that want it. 

But we have meat and we can eat, 

And so the Lord be thanked.” 

“Mother first,” said Mr. Miller, as he 
passed her the shingle loaded with sand- 
wiches ; and then the meal began. 

How hungry they were 1 For a few 
minutes they did not even want to talk, they 
were so hungry, but there were so many 
things to talk about that by the time they 
had eaten one sandwich each they just had 
to say something. 

“The more my stomach stops being 
hungry,” said jack, “ the more my legs begin 
to get thirsty.” 


176 The Millers at Pencroft 

“Explain yourself, my son,” said Mrs. 
Miller. “ 1 do not understand you.” 

“Why my legs, you know,” said Jack, 
“ they get thirsty to go in wading.” . 

“ Oh, may we go ? ” begged Ralph. “May 
we go right straight after dinner ? ” 

“ 1 want to look at my kitties first,” said 
Helen, “ Aurelia is giving them their dinner 
out on the porch.” 

“1 would rather you waited an hour 
before wading,” said Mrs. Miller. “You 
may take off your shoes and stockings and 
run around the shore for a while first. There 
are many interesting things to see there.” 

“ Like what ? ” said Ralph. “ 1 ’d rather — 
Oh, hush ! ” He pointed toward the open 
front door and sat perfectly still. The others 
looked also. 

Sitting bolt upright in the doorway was 
a tiny chipmunk, watching them with his 
bright eyes and ready to drop on all fours 
and scamper at the first motion toward him. 
Not a person moved. Even Ralph, the rest- 
less one of the family, sat with a cookie half 


Pencroft 


177 


raised to his lips, motionless. The chip- 
munk waited a minute, twitched his tail, 
moved his head from side to side a few 
times, then dropped on all fours and ran a 
few steps toward the papers. A scrap of 
Helen’s sandwich had broken off and rolled 
away on the floor toward the door. He 
paused, made another little dash, sat up on 
his haunches and waited to be sure that he 
was safe, then snatched up the fragment of 
food and began eating it, turning it around 
and around in his thin little forepaws and 
nibbling so fast that they could hardly see his 
jaws move. He had it about half eaten when 
a puff of wind flapped a corner of the news- 
paper, and the chipmunk stuffed the piece 
he had left into one cheek and was away 
like a flash. 

“ Oh-h-h ! ” said the boys in tones of the 
deepest disgust. 

“ Was that a skirl ? ” asked Helen. 

And then they begged that they might 
all sit there perfectly still and see if their 

visitor would not return. 

12 


178 The Millers at Pencroft 

“Could n’t possibly,” said Mrs. Miller 
with a laugh. “ We have just half a day in 
which to unpack all our furniture and settle 
an eight-room house, besides getting supper, 
and we have no time for sitting still on the 
floor of the living-room to watch chipmunks. 
You will find plenty of them out-of-doors 
and you may carry out these scraps of food 
for them. Leave your shoes and stockings 
in a corner of the porch and do not go out 
of sight of the cottage.” 

The children scattered and Aurelia entered, 
a black kitten in her right hand and a yellow 
one in her left. “Whatever am I goin’ to 
do with these?” she said. “They’ll be 
killed sure if they ’re left loose.” 

“ Here ’s the thing,” said Mr. Miller, pick- 
ing up a large tin pail which the builders 
must have left behind them. He held it 
toward Aurelia and she dropped the kittens 
into it. “ Any more young members of this 
family to be provided for?” asked Mr. 
Miller, “ If not, I propose to begin unpack- 
ing.” 


Pencroft 


179 


Mr. Underwood drove up with the trunks, 
and they had to be unloaded and carried to 
the different rooms. Then Mrs. Miller and 
.Aurelia got on their work-dresses, Mr. Mil- 
ler put on overalls, and the women swept 
and dusted out the rooms while he unpacked 
furniture on the back porch. Mr. Under- 
wood returned with another load of furniture 
and stayed to help set up the kitchen stove. 

“There!” said Aurelia. “Thank good- 
ness for that ! I can’t do much without a 
kitchen stove. I s’pose it ’ll smell some- 
thing terrible the first time it ’s het, but we 
might ’s well burn the blackin’ off now an’ 
get it done with. Besides you never know 
when one of the children ’ll turn up with a 
stomach-ache an’ need somethin’ heatin’ to 
drink.” 

So the first fire was kindled in Pencroft, 
and the smoke rose lazily from its chimney, 
through the waving branches of the forest, 
and floated upward until it was lost in the 
blue of the sky. The whish of the broom 
and the blow of the hammer sounded on the 


i8o 


The Millers at Pencroft 


still air, and the neighbors from several of 
the near-by cottages called at the front door 
to welcome the Millers and offer their help 
if needed. 

Down on the beach the children rolled 
and tumbled on the fine white sand, lay on 
it, buried each other in it, sifted it through 
their fingers, and made it into heaps and 
ridges. Then they worked nearer to the 
edge of the water and ran along on the 
damp sand which had been packed smooth 
by the beating of the waves. 

“ Look at my tracks 1 ” cried Helen. “ See 
how many ways I can make them. Over 
there 1 walked on my heels and here I 
walked on my toes.” 

“1 can do that, too,” said Jack, and he 
did. “Now watch me make toe-in tracks.” 

“1 can make a funnier track still,” cried 
Ralph. “ Watch me 1 ” And he loped along 
on all fours, pressing down as hard as he 
could with his fingers and toes. The track 
was very funny and they all had squatted 
down to look at it when they saw a long 


Pencroft i8i 

shadow on the sand beside them and looked 
up suddenly. There stood a very plainly 
dressed man with small black eyes and very 
straight black hair. His skin was the brown- 
est they had ever seen — a queer coppery 
brown, and around his waist he wore a sort 
of scarlet woollen rope. In his ears were 
tiny gold ear-rings. 

“ Bo-yb’ ! ” said he. “Smart boy I Him 
walk like Injun ! ” and he nodded toward 
Jack. “Toe straight ahead. No stick toes 
out side. Walk like Injun,” and he smiled 
approvingly at jack. 

Jack did not know what to say. Neither 
did Ralph. Neither did Helen. They thought 
this man must be an Indian and they had no 
idea why he should be watching them. 

“ Your house up there ? ” said the strange 
man. “You come live here now may be ? 
Want grass cut ? Want wood split ? ” 

Then Ralph saw that somebody must an- 
swer and he nodded. “We ’re the Miller 
children, ” he answered. “ Father is up there 
working. You ask him.” 


i 82 


The Millers at Pencroft 


The Indian nodded, grunted, and climbed 
up the bank to the cottage. The children 
watched him out of sight before they spoke. 
They looked at his feet and sure enough, he 
toed straight ahead. 

“ 1 b’leeve he was an Indian himself,” said 
jack. “ 1 was scared, were n’t you ? ” 

Helen said, “ 1 ’m scared now,” but Ralph 
shook his head. “ I don’t see anything to 
get scared about,” said he. “Father said 
there were not any wild Indians around here 
and 1 ’m not going to be afraid of tame ones. 
Not any more than 1 would be afraid of a 
white man with his face painted.” 

“ 1 don’t b’leeve 1 was afraid either,” said 
Jack. “ I thought 1 was for a little while, 
but I guess 1 was just starkled instead.” 

“ What is ‘ starkled ’ ? ” said Helen. 

“Oh, it’s being afraid for just a minute 
because something is so sudden,” replied 
jack, “but after you’ve had time to think 
about it a while you are all right again.” 

“I’m not all right yet,” said Helen, 
sitting down on a big stone. “There is 


Pencroft 183 

something in my stomach that feels afraid 
now.” 

Ralph and Jack stood beside her and 
looked down at her. They were very good 
brothers to this little sister of theirs, and 
they both remembered having the same feel- 
ing themselves. 

“ Does n’t it get any better ? ” asked Jack 
after a few minutes. 

“ Not a bit,” said Helen. 

“ Then 1 ’ll tell you whatto do,” suggested 
Ralph. “1 know it’s the very best thing 
because 1 ’ve done it lots of times. Mother, 
says if you are afraid of something you 
know you ought not to be afraid of, the best 
way is to go right up to it. Then, first 
thing you know, you are not afraid of it at 
all.” 

“Will you go up to the cottage if we’ll 
take hold of your hands?” asked Jack. 

“ Maybe he is up there now, and we won’t 
let go of you unless you tell us to. Besides 
Father and Mother and Aurelia are there, 
you know.” 


184 The Millers at Pencroft 

Helen nodded and they scrambled up the 
bank together, then, hand in hand, they 
passed around the house to the back yard. 
Up on the porch was the strange man help- 
ing their father, actually helping him like 
any other man. The children sat down 
on a fallen tree and watched him. Surely 
the Indian was used to doing white man’s 
work, for he was quick and handy in every- 
thing he did. 

“ Is n’t he strong ? ” whispered Ralph. 

“ I wonder what his name is ? ” said Jack, 
also in a whisper. 

“ I ’m getting over my scared,” said Helen 
softly. “One of you may let go.” 

“ Here Samuel,” said Mr. Miller, “just 
help me carry this in.” 

“Ugh,” said the Indian. “Carry him 
’lone. Go better.” And he picked up the 
heavy case as though it weighed only 
five or ten pounds and set it in the kitchen 
for Aurelia to empty directly on to the table. 

“Just look at that,” said Ralph. “Jiminy !” 

“ Why he has a white name! ” exclaimed 


Pencroft 185 

jack. “ I ’d never have guessed to look at 
him that his name was Samuel.” 

After a while Mr. Miller sent Samuel down 
to the beach with some empty crates which 
he meant to burn there. When he returned 
he had three branches of red and purple 
berries in his hand, and walked straight 
over to where the children were sitting. 
Helen had long ago let go of her brothers’ 
hands, and now she did not even reach for 
them. 

“ Like berries ? ” asked Samuel. “ Good. 
Eat ’em,” and he handed a branch to each 
child. 

“ May we. Father ? ” asked Helen. 

“Certainly, if Samuel says they are all 
right,” said Mr. Miller. “What kind are 
they, Samuel ? ” 

“June berries. Good. Injun eat ’em,” 
replied Samuel, breaking a red and a purple 
one from Ralph’s branch and handing them 
up to Mr. Miller. 

“Ah, service berries,” said he, tasting 
them. “ 1 used to eat them when 1 was a 


The Millers at Pencroft 


1 86 

boy in New York State, and that is what we 
called them there.” 

After that there was no fear of Samuel. 
He had made his first little friendship 
gift and the children understood. Still 
they sat there, and watched the men at 
work and the chipmunks darting to and 
fro. They found three chipmunk holes in 
their back yard and each chose one for his 
own. Once in a while a red squirrel would 
run along a branch over their heads and stop 
to scold them for being around in what 
he seemed to think was his back yard. 
A couple of pewees had their stations 
on the trees near by and sat there sing- 
ing their plaintive song, and making fre- 
quent dashes for the small insects that flew 
past. 

Once Mr. Miller was called away for a few 
minutes and there was nothing for Samuel 
to do alone about the unpacking, so he went 
to work at picking up the litter on the porch. 
Ralph came nearer until he stood quite close. 
Samuel smiled at him as though he knew 


Pencroft 187 

that he was being watched, but he said 
nothing. 

Ralph stood with his hands clasped behind 
his back. At last he said, “Were you very 
wild ?” 

“Quah?” said Samuel, and Ralph saw 
that he was asked to repeat his question. 

“Were you very wild,” he said, “before 
they tamed you ? ” 

“Yes,” said Samuel with a broad grin, 
“ ver’ wild.” 

“ Guess they had a pretty hard job did n’t 
they ? ” continued Ralph. 

“ Yes” said Samuel, and he grinned more 
broadly than ever. 

Then Mr. Miller came out and Samuel 
helped him. again until six o’clock, when he 
started off through the wood toward his 
home. 

That night they all ate from a dining-table, 
and had warm cocoa to drink, so that Jack 
declared they must be pretty nearly settled. 

“ Wait until you see your bed before you 
decide about that,” said his father. “ Part 


i88 


The Millers at Pencroft 


of our freight is delayed and the bedsteads 
and springs are not here. We shall all have 
to sleep on the floor to-night.” 

“ Goody !” cried Ralph. “Just like sol- 
diers — only they sleep on the ground.” 

“just like cats,” said jack. “ 1 ’m going 
to puttend I am Nebuchadnezzar.” 

“ And 1 ’m going to make b’leeve 1 ’m the 
two little kittens,” said Helen. 

“How can you do that?” asked her 
mother. “ The black one might want to lie 
still when the yellow one was turning over.” 

“ Why, don’t you see ? ” answered Helen. 
“ I’ll lie still and go to sleep for the black 
kitty and then 1 ’ll lie still and go to sleep for 
the yellow kitty.” 

A quarter of an hour later they were all 
lying on their single mattresses on the floor, 
the boys upstairs in their room and Helen in 
the tiny side hall which opened out of the 
lower chamber, while Aurelia washed the 
dishes and Mrs. Miller moved quietly around 
settling her bedroom. 

“I’m pretty near asleep for the black one,” 


Pencroft 


189 


said Helen, ''and— then— I— will be ” 

and that was the last she knew until 
morning. 


CHAPTER XIII 


NEW PLAYMATES 


HE next morning, Saturday, the little 



i Millers were hardly up from the break- 
fast table when there came a knock at the 
front door which Mrs. Miller answered. A 
boy of twelve stood there, and took off his 
cap as soon as she appeared. 

“ Good morning,” he said, “are your boys 
at home? I came to get acquainted with 
them. My name is Ernest Fletcher.” 

“ I am very glad to meet you,” said Mrs. 
Miller. “ I will call the boys.” 

“ I wanted to come yesterday,” remarked 
Ernest, “and so did the other fellows, but 
our mothers would n’t let us. They said 
you would be too busy to have strange chil- 
dren around.” 

“We were quite busy,” said Mrs. Miller, 


190 


New Playmates 191 

“and we shall be for some days, but that 
must not keep you and your friends away. 
Here come my boys.” 

She had hardly introduced them when 
two more boys appeared on the porch. 
They were twins and both looked and were 
dressed exactly alike. They also had come 
to make friends with Ralph and Jack and 
had brought some toy boats with them. 
They were Theodore and Edward Smith. 

“ 1 shall remember you and 1 shall remem- 
ber your names,” said Mrs. Miller, “but 1 
fear I shall not be able to tell which is Theo- 
dore and which Edward. How does your 
mother manage ? ” 

“ Oh, that ’s easy,” said one. “ She looks 
for our mole.” 

“ Your mole ! ” exclaimed Ralph and Jack. 
“Where ’d you catch him and how can she 
tell then ? ” 

“ 1 did n’t mean a live mole, ’’said the twin. 
“ 1 meant the kind of brown spot that comes 
on your skin. You see we have only one 
mole, and that is under my right ear. So 


192 The Millers at Pencroft 

if you see the mole then you can be sure 1 ’m 
the one.” 

“ Dear me, how interesting ! ” exclaimed 
Mrs. Miller. “ But which one are you ? ” 

“Me?” said the twin with surprise. 
“Why, 1 am Edward, of course.” 

“ Father made a verse about him,” said 
the other twin. “Perhaps that will help 
you. We always tell it to our school-teacher 
when we have a new one. This is it: 

** I catch a twin, and bless my soul ! 

T is Edward, for I see the mole 1 ” 

Then everybody laughed and felt acquain- 
ted at once. Ralph and jack looked at the 
boats and Ernest asked them if they had a 
dog. 

“No, but we have two kittens,” replied 
jack. “ Want to see them ? Mother, may 
we take the boys through to the back porch 
to see the kittens ? ” 

“You might better go the outside way,” 
said Mrs. Miller. “Aurelia is very busy in 
the dining-room and kitchen.” 


New Playmates 


193 


They found Helen out on the porch with 
her kittens, which she was feeding. Ralph 
gave the introduction. “This is my sister,” 
he said. “ Her name is Helen.” The visitors 
gave her their names and then all squatted 
down to watch the kittens. 

“ Have n’t you any sisters ? ” asked Helen, 
who was wishing that she had a visitor all 
to herself. 

“1 have,” replied Ernest. “She’s only 
four, and she could n’t come with me be- 
cause she sat down in a pail of water after 
my mother had her all ready to come. 
She ’ll be here pretty soon, though, when 
Louise and Charlotte get ready.” 

“What ’s her name ? ” asked Helen. 

“ Her name is Mary, Mary Fletcher,” said 
he. “ 1 think 1 hear her now.” 

Helen picked up her kittens, which had 
just lapped the last drop of milk, and 
with one in each hand ran around the cor- 
ner of the house, followed by the five boys, 
Ralph bringing the grass-lined pail in which 
the kittens took their naps. Louise and 

13 


194 The Millers at Pencroft 

Charlotte proved to be the girls whom the 
Millers had seen making sand-pies on the 
beach. They stopped to see the pets and 
get acquainted and then went up to the front 
door to find the lady of the house. 

“ My mother, Mrs. Towar, sent you these 
cherries,” said Louise, holding out a dainty 
red and white Indian basket, lined with 
cherry leaves and filled with delicious great 
ox-heart cherries. “We built the first cot- 
tage on the Point and our trees bear every 
year now.” 

“1 am Charlotte Raymond,” said the 
other girl, “and my mother wondered if 
you would be willing to let your little girl 
come down to play on the beach with us 
this morning. She said to tell you that the 
water is very shallow there, and that she 
will be sewing on the front porch all morn- 
ing, so you needn’t worry about Helen.” 

Helen was called in, looked over, washed 
in spots where dirt had got on since break- 
fast, kissed, told to be a good playmate, 
and sent off to stay until noon. She car- 


New Playmates 


195 


ried the kittens in their pail and one doll 
tucked cosily in between them. 

The five boys went down on the Pencroft 
beach and began to build sand forts. This 
was great fun, for the damp sand packed 
firmly, and each boy had a new shingle 
with which to pile and press it into shape. 
After the forts were done and they were 
tired of that sport they picked up a lot of 
smooth stones from the beach, and played 
that they were a besieging army firing can- 
non at the forts and battering down the 
walls. 

Then they sailed the boats which the 
twins had brought, and ran up to the cot- 
tage for some small pieces of board to use 
in the same way. Ernest had a stout knife 
and soon whittled one end of each board to 
a point, so that it was shaped more like a 
real boat. The cottage next to Pencroft had 
a narrow but quite long dock, made of two 
planks laid side by side on light supports, 
and after the boys tired of wading around 
with their boats, they ran out to the end of 


196 The Millers at Pencroft 

this and let them go for the wind and the 
waves to carry slantingly in to shore. 

All would have gone well if the girls had 
not come along the beach with the kittens. 
Mrs. Raymond had been called away and 
had told them to go back to the Miller cot- 
tage. “O boys,” cried Ralph, when he 
saw the pail. “ 1 have an idea ! It ’ll be 
just more fun! Let’s put the kittens on 
two of the biggest boats and let them 
have a ride.” 

“ Won’t your people care ?” asked Ernest, 
who had his doubts. 

“ Care ? I don’t believe so,” replied Ralph, 
who was too much excited to be thoughtfol. 
“ Anyhow let ’s try it just once, and then 1 ’ll 
ask Father afterward.” 

Jack supposed that it was all right if his 
elder brother thought so, and Helen was so 
fond of the water herself that she had no 
idea how much cats dislike it. The pail was 
carried to the end of the dock, the two largest 
board boats selected, and a kitten carefully 
placed on each. 


New Playmates 


197 


Blackie raised her paws, one at a time, 
from the damp board and gave them a good 
shaking, but it was held so high that she 
dared not try to get off. Buttercup, the 
yellow kitten, arched her tiny back and spit 
at the laughing children. 

“Now you hand me the other one as 
soon as 1 get this started,” said Ralph, who 
claimed the honor of launching them be- 
cause it was his plan. Blackie was set 
afloat, and before he had time to see how 
she stood it, Ralph had put Buttercup’s frail 
craft on the waves as far out as he could 
reach. 

“Oh, look at ’em, boys! ” he cried, dan- 
cing up and down on the end of the dock. 
“See Buttercup stick up her back ! ” 

“Well, 1 suppose you know how cats 
hate water,” said Ernest. “If you were a 
kitten on that boat 1 bet you ’d have your 
back an inch higher ’n hers! ” 

“ Ralph Miller,” said Jack, his eyes flash- 
ing and his breath coming fast. “1 think 
its just cruel, that ’s what 1 think! ” 


198 The Millers at Pencroft 

Helen’s eyes filled as she saw her pets 
begin to show such fright, and she did what 
every little Miller always did in time of 
trouble. She opened her mouth and called 
“ Mother-r-r ! ” as loudly as she could. But 
the noise of wind and waves and the fact 
that Mrs. Miller was in the kitchen prevented 
her hearing the call. Ralph suddenly felt 
an awful responsibility, and no longer danced 
on the dock. Instead he stood bent forward 
and watching the kittens as though he could 
not look away. Buttercup was plainly both 
angry and alarmed, yet she rode her board 
like an old sailor, hanging on with every 
curved white claw and shifting her weight a 
little as the board rose and fell on the waves. 
Blackie was too much frightened to hang on 
tightly, and was only a poor little wet and 
shivering bunch. A big wave startled her 
and she moved nearer one end of the board, 
which upset at once and spilled her into the 
water. 

Helen screamed and Ralph jumped. He 
landed in water up to his waist and plunged 





Ralph and the Kittens 




New Playmates 


199 


around so in regaining his footing that he 
was instantly wet all over, but he dashed 
the water out of his eyes as quickly as he 
could and made straight for Blackie. He 
lifted her out barely in time to prevent her 
drowning and then he went for Buttercup. 
When he had both he waded to the shore. 

Jack had shouted for his mother as soon 
as Ralph jumped, and kept it up until his 
father came running down the bank. Ralph 
walked out on the beach, dripping and shiv- 
ering and holidng a kitten in each hand. 
His father took the kittens and passed But- 
tercup on to Helen, after wrapping her in his 
handkerchief. Blackie appeared to be dead. 

“Jack,” said he, “go up to the cottage 
with Ralph at once and help your mother by 
waiting on him. Stay there until I come. 
Helen, take Buttercup up and dry her out by 
the kitchen stove. I will look after Blackie.” 

Helen was no sooner away than he began 
working over Blackie. “ Now children,” he 
said, “ we shall have to get the water out of 
this little cat and start her breathing. Don’t 


200 


The Millers at Pencroft 


think me cruel.” And he held the kitten up 
by the tail. 

The girls cried “Oh!” and the boys 
“ Gee ! ” and a tiny stream of water ran out 
of the kitten’s mouth. 

“ Now if this were a boy,” said Mr. Miller, 
“and he had been down to the bottom, we 
would have to clear the sand and weeds out 
of his mouth. We ’ll not have to do that 
for Blackie. We will try to help her 
breathe, however.” 

He put the thumb and finger of one hand 
on the kitten’s ribs and pressed them in and 
let them go, pressed them in and let them 
go, about as often as the tiny creature would 
breathe. After he had done this a few times 
Blackie shuddered and gasped and opened 
her eyes. 

The children standing around gave little 
exclamations of pleasure and surprise, but 
had not yet reached the point of asking 
questions. 

“ Somebody give me a handkerchief, 
please,” said Mr. Miller. Charlotte and 


New Playmates 


201 


Louise were the first to offer theirs, which 
were so small that Mr. Miller took them 
both. He wrapped Blackie in one after rub- 
bing her off with the other, and then he 
found a place sheltered from the wind, 
where the sand was hot, and made a cosy 
nest of sand for her. 

“ 1 leave you to watch her,” said he. “ 1 
must go to look after Ralph. The kitten 
will be all right in a few minutes, but don’t 
let her wander off and get lost.” 

As soon as Mr. Miller was gone, the chil- 
dren began talking about what they had 
seen him do. 

“He holded Helen’s kitty up by the 
tay- 2 i\," said little Mary Fletcher. 

“ 1 wonder how he happened to know 
about doing that,” said Charlotte Raymond. 

“ 1 tell you,” remarked Ernest, “ he read 
what to do for people that are most drowned, 
and then he just figured out what would be 
right for a kitten.” 

“ If it ’s a person you want to-to-to start 
breathing,” said Edward Smith, “you lay 


202 


The Millers at Pencroft 


him over a barrel on his stomach and roll 
him.” 

“Would he lay us on a barrel on our 
stomach if we were drowned?” asked 
Theodore, following the usual custom of 
the twins by speaking as though one stom- 
ach belonged to both. 

“ 1 suppose so,” replied Edward. 

“Why do they put folks on barrels that 
side up ? ” asked Louise. 

“ Why ? ” said Ernest in his big-boy man- 
ner. “ Why do they do that ? 1 supposed 
everybody knew. It ’s to resusipate them.” 

Of course there were no more questions 
asked after the biggest boy had used such a 
word in such a manner, so they filled the 
pail a quarter full of warm sand and laid 
Blackie in it, and then began sailing their 
boats, this time with only a stick or a small 
stone for a passenger. 

Meanwhile, up in the cottage Jack had 
been helping Ralph remove his wet clothing, 
rub dry, and get on fresh garments. When 
that was attended to and the wet things 


New Playmates 


203 


spread out on the branches of a fallen tree, 
Mr. Miller came up and had a long and seri- 
ous talk with Ralph, Jack standing by and 
listening. 

“There is no excuse for you, Ralph,” he 
said. “I think the boys of the Saturday 
Club would be very much ashamed of you 
for sending two helpless little creatures 
afloat like that. You know enough to do 
better than you did. I am glad you jumped 
in and saved the kittens when you saw that 
they might drown. That was all right, but I 
shall have to punish you for causing all the 
trouble.” 

“What are you going to do to me?” 
Ralph asked very meekly. 

Before answering, Mr. Miller drew a folded 
paper from his pocket — a paper that was 
printed on one side and had several pictures 
on it. “ This is something 1 got on the boat 
the other day,” he said. “ It would be well 
for you boys to know these things. Here 
are the directions for caring for people who 
have been under water— drowning people. 


204 The Millers at Pencroft 

I want you to learn every word on that 
sheet, so that you can stand up before me 
and repeat it perfectly, as you would speak 
a piece at school. You may begin at once 
and study an hour a day until you know it. 
Jack was somewhat to blame, also, for not 
trying to stop you, and 1 want him to be 
able to tell me, in his own words, all that is 
on the paper. You may begin by studying 
half an hour now.” 

That was what first made Ralph realize 
that living in the woods did not mean that 
he had the right to act like a savage. “1 
never really thought it out loud,” he re- 
marked to jack after his father had gone 
down-stairs, “but 1 guess 1 had a sort of 
feeling inside that we could do anything we 
wanted to here.” 

“Guess we can’t,” said jack. “But 1 
don’t care. We can do enough anyhow.” 

“ You ’d better think ! ” said Ralph, who 
felt that he was getting off more easily than 
he deserved, and was happy over it. And 
then they began studying in earnest. 


CHAPTER XIV 


THE SHOW 

IT does not take very long for a few families 
' living near each other in the woods to 
become very well acquainted, and in ten 
days after the Millers entered Pencroft they 
felt as though they had always known their 
summer neighbors. It was so different in 
many ways from living in town. To be sure 
they slept every night and ate three meals 
a day ; they had as good manners in the 
woods as they would have had in Winthrop, 
or in Longfield ; and they tried to keep as 
clean. Still there was a difference. In Win- 
throp, for instance, Mr. Miller did not work in 
his yard all day without coat, vest, collar, or 
cuffs, surrounded by three or four Indians ; 
Mrs. Miller did not sit down on a fallen tree- 
trunk in the middle of the morning, wearing 


205 


206 


The Millers at Pencroft 


her kitchen-apron, and visiting with another 
cottager in a sweeping-cap. In Winthrop 
Aurelia never ran out to borrow an egg or a 
cup of sugar of a neighbor, but on Trelago 
Point she had to both borrow and lend 
nearly every day, for the nearest grocery 
was two miles distant, and the goods were 
delivered only once a day. 

You see it was not strange that when 
their parents made friends so quickly the 
children should do the same, and at the end 
of a week be playing and working and plan- 
ning together like a big family of brothers 
and sisters. 

It was about the fifteenth of July when 
the boy who brought around the milk came 
in a state of great excitement. “ Whatcher 
think ? ” said he to Ernest Fletcher, the first 
boy he met that morning, “ Barnum an’ 
Bailey ’s a cornin’ to Mill City ’n a couple o’ 
weeks. All our family ’s goin’, too.” 

“ How will you get there ? ” asked Ernest. 

“Drive,” replied johnny. “’S only six- 
teen miles.” 


The Show 


207 


Ernest followed the milk-wagon to the 
next cottage and then to the next and the 
next and the next. At every cottage where 
there was a child, that child heard about 
the circus that was coming to Mill City, and 
followed the wagon along. While Johnny 
was in a cottage delivering milk or vege- 
tables, the children visited among them- 
selves. When Johnny came out they listened 
to what he could tell them of the show-bills 
which covered at least one side of every 
large barn in the village, and which he had 
studied on his way over. 

To become so suddenly popular was 
rather upsetting to Johnny, and he made 
bad work of selling vegetables that morning. 
Some of his customers took it very meekly 
when he made mistakes ; it was not so with 
Aurelia. When he told her that he was 
selling carrots at five cents a quart, and 
cream at ten cents a bunch, she took him 
by the shoulders and shook him. “ Look 
here, youngster,” said she. “When you 
try to peddle vegetables you ’d better not 


2o8 


The Millers at Pencroft 


try to peddle so much news. Come around 
braggin’ to our children about goin’ to the 
cirkis, an’ gettin’ them all crazy to go! Spillin’ 
half a pint o’ milk on my clean back porch, 
too! We don’t want news o’ you. Under- 
stand ? What we want is vegetables an’ 
milk, an’ we don’t want to buy our milk 
by the bunch nuther! ” 

Poor johnny! But then nobody else had 
seen him, the milk-boy, shaken by a cus- 
tomer, and he was not going to tell. So he 
went back to the road with his empty 
measure and berry boxes, described the rhi- 
noceros as he rearranged his wagon, climbed 
up one of the wheels, shouted to the horse, 
and disappeared down the woods road with 
one foot on a thill and one in the air, as he 
leaned lightly over the old white horse and 
rested his left hand on the faithful creature’s 
flank. “Hi, hi!” he shouted, waving the 
stub of a whip in his right hand. “ Hi, hi! 
Whoop-la! ” 

“Wish I could go,” said Ernest, “but I 
know 1 can’t.” 


The Show 


209 


“Father was out to the wagon,” said 
Theodore. “ He said we could n’t possibly 
go.” 

“ 1 asked my father and he said we 
could n’t go,” added Ralph dolefully. 

“We can’t go,” said the girls. 

Then they all went down to the beach 
and discussed the show. At last Ernest 
said, “ I wish we could have a show our- 
selves if we can’t go to one.” 

“ We can do a lot of trapeze tricks,” said 
the twins. 

“You ought to see me walk on my 
hands,” added Ralph. “And 1 can turn 
summersaults like everything.” 

“So can I,” said Jack, “but what 1 want 
most about our show is animals.” 

The little girls sat silent. There did not 
seem to be any part for them to take in the 
performance. Ernest noticed this and felt 
sorry for them. “I say, fellows,” he said, 
“could n’t the girls take the tickets and sell 
lemonade, and do things like that if we 
have a show ? ” 


210 


The Millers at Pencroft 


“’Course they could,” said every boy, 
and Theodore added, “They can tell about 
the animals, too, if we get any.” 

“We ’ve just got to have animals,” re- 
marked Jack. “We ’ve got to have them, 
even if we have to call them all something 
else instead of what they are — like calling 
one kitten an elephant and the other a rhi- 
noceros, you know.” 

“ We might do that 1 suppose,” said Ed- 
ward, “only I ’d rather have things we could 

call what they truly are. 1 ’d rather ” 

“Ouch!” cried jack, jumping up and 
shaking one hand as hard as he could. 
“ Ouch ! Hairy caterpillar up my sleeve. 
Tickled like fun. There it is now ! Oh ! 
Oh! Oh ! Boys, 1 have an idea 1 ” 

“Tell us,” they cried. 

“Oh, it will be dandy!” remarked Jack 
with a giggle, “just dandy 1 ” 

“Well, tell us,” the others said. 

“ 1 will,” said he. “ It was the caterpillar 
subgested it. Let ’s have a bug show.” 

“ How ’ll we do it?” asked Ernest, who 


The Show 


211 


was a city boy and knew very little about 
such things. 

“Oh get some of all the different kinds 
of bugs and worms and things around here 
and have ’em in little boxes with mosquito 
netting in front, or else in bottles you could 
see through and then have a paper telling 
their names and what they do.” 

“There would n’t be enough kinds to 
pay,” said Theodore, who also came from a 
city home and who had never had his atten- 
tion called to such things. “There ’s just 
bees and wasps and ants and grasshoppers.” 

“And caterpillars,” said Louise. 

“And walking-sticks,” said Charlotte. 

“And moffs,” said Helen. 

“Apd butterflies,” added little Mary 
Fletcher, who did not understand it all, but 
was bound to have a share in whatever it 
was. 

“ Huh ! ” remarked Ralph. “ Is that all 
you know about insects? You ought to 
belong to our Club at home if you want to 
find out about little ’live things. It ’s the 


212 


The Millers at Pencroft 


Club our mother started, but now Professor 
Harding has it meet at the school-house 
Saturday afternoons. IVe don’t just say 
‘grasshoppers.’ We say ‘road-grasshop- 
pers ’ and ‘ cricket-grasshoppers ’ and lots of 
other kinds.” 

“ 1 b’leeve there are fifty kinds of creatures 
we could get here,” said jack, “counting 
polliwogs and minnows and frogs and things 
like that.” 

“1 don’t believe it,” said Ernest. “Bet 
you can’t get more than fifteen kinds. That 
many would do for the show, though.” 

“ We can help get the animals then, can’t 
we ? ” asked Charlotte Joyfully. 

“ And make the cages, too ? ” said Louise. 

“ Ot course,” said the boys. 

“ Let ’s ask my mother to help us plan 
things,” suggested Ralph. “She always 
has the best ideas about how to manage 
everything.” 

“Wouldn’t she think it was too much 
bother ? ” said Ernest. 

“Our mother?” exclaimed Ralph and 


The Show 


213 


Jack, and Helen joined with them in an 
emphatic “ No ! ” 

So Mrs. Miller was soon surrounded by 
an eager crowd of children as she sat with 
her mending-basket on the porch. She ap- 
proved of the plan and agreed to help them 
with advice whenever they wished it. “You 
must do all the real work,” she said, “be- 
cause it is to be your show, but 1 am sure 
your friends will be glad to give you any- 
thing they can to help get the menagerie 
ready.” Then she went on to talk about 
cages and posters and a dozen other things 
to be made for the great event. 

It takes time and work, you know, to get 
a show with a menagerie ready for its first 
performance. At last the cottagers were 
delighted to find great posters tacked to 
rough bill-boards in two places on the East 
Shore Drive, reading as shown on the follow- 
ing page. 

Everybody planned to come. Life was 
very quiet for the grown people on Trelago 
Point, and the show would be well attended. 


214 


The Millers at Pencroft 


Greatest Show on Earth ! ! I 
This Afternoon 
at 

Pencroft ! 

Daring Trapeze Acts I 
Trained Dog ! 
Summersaults ! 
Walking on Hands I 
And — 

Enormous Collection of 
Aggregated Bugs, Caterpillars, 
and Living Wonders 
from 

T relago Point. 
Performance begins at 2. 
Admission 5 cents. 


It was a morning of the greatest excitement, 
and at two o’clock the first guests came. 
They were Mrs. Vanderlip and her daugh- 
ter, from the cottage next to Pencroft. The 
show was to take place on the wide beach, 
below the terrace, where the boys had ar- 
ranged a circle of seats around a ring of sand. 



The Show 


215 


Several trees grew in the centre of the ring, 
and two trapezes swung from their branches. 
A little to one side were other trees, between 
which Mr. Miller had nailed a few board 
shelves, and on these shelves stood the 
menagerie, a fine collection of fifty-one 
boxes, bottles, and jars containing speci- 
mens of the animal and insect life on the 
Point. 

Every specimen was labelled, and as all 
the children except Mary Fletcher had 
helped write the labels, there was a great 
variety in both penmanship and spelling. 
Here are some of the labels : 


Caterpilers 


Aunts. 

of 


The Big 

Milkweed 


Butterfly 


Black Kind 


Crickets. Hide quick, hears 
with their legs and churps at 
night 


2i6 


The Millers at Pencroft 


Tree Toad. His tongue is 


Thousand-legged worms. 

fastened at the other end 


But they havent really 

instead 


that many 


It was surprising what a fine exhibit there 
was. Mr. Miller had given the young show- 
men a garter-snake which he had found, and 
Samuel Pequonga, the Indian, had brought 
a small mud-turtle in his hand all the way 
from the village on purpose to give it to 
Jack. Mrs. Miller had given them four young 
deer-mice which she had found in a roll of 
burlap on the back porch, and Aurelia, who 
hated spiders, had consented to remain per- 
fectly still while Ralph caught a big wood- 
spider that was on her skirt and shook it off 
into a bottle. Some of the other cottagers 
had sent specimens in for exhibition, and 
the children, advised by Mrs. Miller, had 
searched in the most likely places for insects 
of all kinds. Besides these, they had sev- 
eral varieties of small fishes, a chipmunk, 
and a snail. 


The Show 


217 


You should have heard the people who 
came to the show discussing the menagerie. 
A couple of college professors, whose own 
children were long since grown to manhood 
and womanhood, laughed and pointed, and 
read the labels with as much interest as 
boys at Barnum and Bailey’s. 

It was almost three o’clock before people 
were ready to find seats and watch the ring 
performance. Mr. Miller was over by the tent 
(made of burlap) in which the performers 
were to dress, and he gave them the 
word to begin. Charlotte Raymond, who 
was nine and the oldest girl there, had a 
dollar and fifty-five cents in her money-box, 
and knew that there was nobody else to 
come, so she left the ticket office, which 
was an old stump, and came around to play 
in the band. 

Near the entrance to the dressing-tent was 
the band stand, a log, and on it sat Char- 
lotte, Louise, and Helen, each with a paper- 
covered comb, giggling so that they could 
hardly play at all. They had sheets of paper 


2i8 


The Millers at Pencroft 


fastened up in front of them on milkweed 
stalks, and pretended that they were music. 

In the dressing-tent were five excited boys 
in their circus costumes, and the two horses 
which were to be used in the ring. These 
spirited beasts looked very much like the 
broad-topped sawhorses which the carpen- 
ters had used. Each wore a large saddle- 
cloth of Turkey-red calico, and a bridle, 
which was securely nailed under his chin. 
Their long, flowing tails had the fluffy, wavy 
appearance of ravelled rope. 

Ernest was the ringmaster, and the band 
had hardly finished the overture. Marching 
through Georgia, when he strode into the 
ring, carrying a long whip and looking quite 
resplendent. He wore a pair of shiny rub- 
ber boots over his trousers, which gave 
him a very distinguished air, and a white 
flower in his buttonhole added the last 
touch of style. 

Making a low bow to the audience he an- 
nounced, with great dignity, that the ring 
performance was about to begin with an exhi- 


The Show 


219 


bition of tumbling by the “ celebrated Jack- 
milleriowsky, the Russian contortionist.” 
There sounded a loud blast from a trumpet 
somewhere behind the band stand (although 
some people did think it a fish horn instead 
of a trumpet) and Jack walked out. 

jack’s costume was made up of a pair of 
long stockings, a pair of tennis shoes, and a 
red and white bathing suit, low in the neck 
and sleeveless. To tell the truth the cele- 
brated jackmilleriowsky looked rather fright- 
ened when he came forward to make his 
bow, but he saw his mother smile at him 
and his courage came back. 

His first feat was the lifting of a large 
football which had been labelled “ Lead 300 
pounds.” This was brought in by Ralph 
and the twins, who staggered and groaned 
as they walked to show how heavy it was. 
jack stood with his arms folded until every- 
thing was ready, when he came forward, 
lifted the ball easily, carried it around the 
ring in his arms, raised it above his head, 
lay down on the ground with it held against 


220 


The Millers at Pencroft 


his chest, and succeeded in rising to his 
feet with the ball still there. 

“ The next feat which we shall present to 
you, ladies and gentlemen,” said the ring- 
master, “ is the carrying of a horse around 
the ring by this wonderful performer.” 

At this point Ralph came from the dress- 
ing-tent leading one of the sawhorses by the 
bridle. The audience had been enthusiastic 
before, and their applause at this moment 
was something deafening. The steed was 
led safely to the arena and after he had been 
patted and quieted by the ringmaster, Jack- 
milleriowsky approached him and, passing 
his arms around the creature’s body, carried 
him triumphantly around the ring. Then he 
bowed and went back to the tent, but was 
recalled and made to bow again and again 
to the people on the seats, who were clap- 
ping their hands and waving their handker- 
chiefs exactly as they do at the big circuses. 

“Senor Ralfoldi, the Hungarian bareback 
rider, will now give us an exhibition of his 
wonderful power over the brute creation. 


The Show 


221 


He will tame and ride a fiery creature which 
has never before been mounted, and will, 
before leaving the ring, force the newly 
tamed beast to trot beside one of our stead- 
iest ring horses, Senor Ralfoldi riding with 
one foot on each.” 

There was a long pause. The ringmaster 
seemed anxious. He watched the entrance 
to the ring. He even walked over that way 
several times and shouted directions to 
somebody to be careful. At length there 
were sounds of a struggle, noise of kicking, 
and shouts of ‘ ‘ Whoa ! Whoa 1 ” A second 
sawhorse was led into the ring with great 
care. It was plainly to be seen that he was 
a dangerous beast, for he did not slide along 
on all fours as a steady horse should, but 
came pitching and tumbling into the ring, 
sometimes on two legs and sometimes on 
one. Even the jerks and pushes given by 
the two grooms (the Smith boys) who led 
him, seemed to make him act all the worse. 

While everybody was laughing at the 
lurches of the “ fiery creature,” Ralph came 


222 


The Millers at Pencroft 


out clad in a costume somewhat like Jack’s, 
but of different colors. He bowed low to 
the audience and then walked over to the 
horse. He folded his arms and glared at the 
beast, which began to quiet down at once. 
He then stroked and patted it, and at last 
mounted it with great care. The grooms 
sprang away from its head, and it was easy 
to see from the way in which Senor Ralfoldi 
leaned forward and used his whip that the 
creature was now travelling around the ring 
at a very rapid rate. At last he reined him 
in and the “ steady ring horse ” was brought 
alongside. Senor Ralfoldi placed one foot 
on the back of each, and what with the 
cracking of the ringmaster’s whip, the shouts 
of Hi ! Hi 1 ” and the applause of the audi- 
ence, excitement ran very high indeed. 

Next came trapeze work by “Smith 
Brothers, Aerialists,” which was exceedingly 
good, the twins having belonged to a gym- 
nasium class at home and learned many 
fancy tricks there from a fine teacher. Their 
costumes were very circus-y, and they had 


The Show 


223 


the wrist straps which such performers 
usually wear. 

Ernestino and his wonderful trained dog 
followed the Smith Brothers, and for this act 
Ernest laid down his ringmaster’s whip and 
put his collie, Watch, through a series of 
very clever tricks. The audience were as 
much interested as though they had never 
seen Watch perform before. He shook 
hands, first with one paw and then with the 
other, walked on his hind legs, begged for 
food, answered questions by barking, jumped 
over a walking stick, rolled over and over, 
and, last of all, pretended that he was dead 
and allowed himself to be dragged around 
without so much as opening his eyes. The 
applause, which was deafening, did not 
arouse him, but when his master said quietly, 
“Watch is alive again,” he jumped up, bark- 
ing, frisking, and leaping as he followed 
Ernestino into the tent. 

The band now played Dixie while the 
troupe made ready for the “grand finale,” 
as the ringmaster called it. Ernest’s express 


224 The Millers at Pencroft 

cart had been rigged up with a light crate on 
top of it, and in this sat little Mary Fletcher 
as a lion-tamer, with Blackie and Buttercup 
beside her and a small willow switch across 
her lap. This was pushed into the middle 
of the ring by the “Smith Brothers” and 
left there while they returned to the tent to 
march out again with Jackmilleriowski and 
Senor Ralfoldi for the last act. In this 
they turned summersaults, handsprings, and 
walked on their hands, all at once, while 
the great Ernestino and his trained dog stood 
at one side in regular show-bill positions, 
and the band fairly outdid itself, playing 
Yankee Doodle in three different keys 
and a great variety of time. The trained 
dog looked hungrily toward the lion cage 
and the lions arched their backs, raised their 
tails, and spit at him. However, this only 
made it the more exciting, and the dog did 
not chase the lions. 

This ended the show, and the members 
of the band at once threw down their instru- 
ments and began passing glasses of lemonade 


The Show 


225 


which Aurelia brought down from the cot- 
tage, while the performers joined the audi- 
ence and asked people if they did n’t “think 
it was good.” 


CHAPTER XV 


MUSHROOMS 

IT was nearly a month before Mr. Miller 
* was satisfied with the condition of the 
yard around Pencroft. There were so many 
trees to be felled and roots to be grubbed 
out, stones to be pried up and rolled over 
the bank to the beach below, that Samuel 
worked there week after week. Then earth 
had to be brought in and graded ready for 
the sowing of grass seed in the fall. By the 
time that this was done the little Millers 
were very well acquainted with Samuel and 
with his friend Matthew, who often worked 
with him. 

They learned much that was useful from 
watching the Indians at work, yet there 
were other things which it seemed impos- 
sible for white people to learn. Mr. Miller 


226 


Mushrooms 


227 


was a large, strong man, used to all sorts of 
exercise, and able to swing an ax almost as 
well as Samuel himself, but he could never 
measure distances with his eye, or tell with- 
out trying exactly where to put the crowbar 
under a stone so as to lift it most easily. 
These things always surprised the little Mil- 
lers, and they liked to stay near and watch 
the Indians at work. 

When Samuel had to saw wood and had 
no sawbuck on which to place it, he stepped 
into the deep woods back of Pencroft, cut 
down two saplings, made two four-foot 
pieces from each, sharpened each piece at 
one end, and drove them into the ground in 
the shape of two X’s, making a far better 
sawbuck than was ever made in a factory 
or sold from a store. Here he and Matthew 
worked for nearly a week, sawing and piling 
the best of the trees which they had felled 
around Pencroft. They talked as they 
worked in the queer Ojibway language with 
a few French words sprinkled in, for the 
early traders who visited the Point had 


228 


The Millers at Pencroft 


been French, and the old Indians learned 
from them. 

Samuel was an educated Indian. He had 
attended the Mission School when a boy, 
and could read and write. He had many 
children and a few grandchildren, and lived 
in a house with a front door. He was the 
only Indian in his village who had a front 
door, and that was because he was willing 
that white people should come to see him 
if they wished. The other Indians did not 
like white people peeping in their doors, 
watching their squaws at the basket-weav- 
ing, and talking about them in words which 
the squaws could not understand. 

Samuel and Matthew had the pretty In- 
dian custom of bringing little gifts, and 
nearly every morning when they came out 
of the woods to work, one or the other 
would have in his hand something he had 
picked up on his five-mile walk from home. 
Sometimes it was a sprig of service berries 
or a bunch of wintergreen ; sometimes it 
was only a queerly shaped stick, and once 


Mushrooms 


229 


it was a piece of wild grape-vine shaped like 
a snake, which Matthew had cut off from a 
dead tree. A few strokes of his sharp knife 
had made the tail end pointed and shaped 
an open mouth in the head. Then he made 
a forked tongue of a splinter from the kin- 
dling-pile and fastened it into the mouth, 
marked the eyes with a lead pencil, and 
gave it to Helen. 

“ No give to you to-day,” he said to the 
boys with a funny smile, for Samuel had 
learned to smile. 

“Give us some Indian names, Samuel,” 
begged Ralph. “ 1 mean some really truly 
Indian ones in Ojibway.” 

“ Please do,” added Jack. 

“ Bime-by,” said Samuel. “ After dinner 
maybe. Matthew he help me.” 

“Teach us some Indian language now,” 
said Ralph. “Then you can give us our 
names after dinner.” 

“Nishishin quese es,” said Samuel. 

“ What is that ? ” asked Ralph and jack 
together. 


230 The Millers at Pencroft 

“ Pretty good boys,” replied Samuel. 

Ralph and Jack giggled. They had not 
expected a compliment. 

“ How do you say ‘ Pretty good girls ’ ? ” 
asked jack. 

“Nishishin quase es,” said Matthew. 

“ Tell us some more,” said Ralph. “ How 
do you say ‘ Pretty good shoes ’ ? ” 

“Nishishin moccaswi," said Samuel. Then 
he added, “ Run away. No talk more. Saw 
wood.” 

When the twelve o’clock boat passed, the 
Indians went off into the woods with their 
dinner-pails, and the boys waited by the 
sawbuck for them to return at one. The 
red men were hardly in sight again after 
dinner when the boys called out “ Did you 
get us our names ? ” 

“ Ugh,” said both men. 

“What is mine?” asked Ralph. 

“You Shob-wa-5««^,” said Samuel. 

“ What does that mean ? ” asked Ralph. 

“ Breaking through thin piece cloth,” 
replied Samuel. 


Mushrooms 


231 


“Why did you name me that?” said 
Ralph, who had expected to be called Big 
Lone Bear or White Eagle, at least. 

Samuel got ready to say what was a great 
deal for him. “ Indian name anybody, 
name him for what he does, like kill bear 
or that way. You tear clothes.” 

Ralph laughed, but he knew the joke was 
on him, for he was careless about his cloth- 
ing and had that very morning torn a pair 
of trousers so badly that they could never 
be mended. 

“ What ’s my name ? ” asked Jack, won- 
dering what fault of his these quick-witted 
and slow-tongued workmen had discovered. 

“You Es-qua-Wf/" said Samuel, and he 
placed one of his small and finely formed 
hands on Jack’s head. “ Es-qua-^>ff means 
‘last little brother.’ ” 

“ Oh, thank you,” cried Jack, pleased with 
both the name and the kindness which 
Samuel always showed him. 

Here Mrs. Miller came to the door to call 
her boys, for she thought they must be 


232 The Millers at Pencroft 

bothering the men with their questions. 
Before she could speak, however, Samuel 
took a piece of newspaper from behind a log 
and came toward her. “ Mushroom,” he 
said, as he handed the paper to her. “Good 
to eat. Fry him on stove. Good.” 

“Thank you, Samuel,” said Mrs. Miller. 
“ Where did you get it ? ” 

“ Back here,” was the answer. “ Lot of 
him in woods. Beech log get old, mush- 
room like this grow on him maybe. Boys 
get him to eat maybe.” 

“We ’ll hunt for some more this very 
afternoon,” said Mrs. Miller. “ It rained so 
hard yesterday that mushrooms could n’t 
help growing.” 

She carried the mushroom in to show it 
to Aurelia and the boys followed close 
behind. 

“Sakes alive!” exclaimed Aurelia, when 
she was shown the mushroom. “ Does 
that Injin say to fry it? What does he 
know about cookin’, 1 ’d like to know ? It 
looks to me more like the things my cousin 


Mushrooms 


233 


Jake has on the what-not in his parlor. He 
calls ’em corals, an’ says they come from 
Floridy. 1 don’t believe this thing will ever 
’come tender enough to eat.” 

“Why Aurelia!” explained Mrs. Miller. 
“This is a mushroom and you have surely 
eaten mushrooms before now, only you 
have never seen this kind. You look up 
your recipe book and find out just how to 
cook them. The children and 1 are going to 
hunt for more.” 

The boys found Helen and they all started 
off together with their mother, taking turns 
in carrying the pail. 

“Now we shall see what good woods- 
men you are,” she said. “ What part of the 
forest shall we visit ? ” 

One boy suggested one part, the other 
wanted to go elsewhere. Helen preferred 
to go to a small open place in the woods, 
where an old Indian chief had once had his 
cabin and his potato patch. It was still 
called “The Red Man’s Garden,” although 
only grass and juniper grew among the 


234 The Millers at Pencroft 

young trees that had sprung up here and 
there since the old chief’s death. A summer- 
house and a swing were there, and Helen 
cared more about the swing than she did 
about mushrooms. 

Mrs. Miller led the way toward the gar- 
den. “The beeches are thickest there,” 
she said, “and Helen may swing while we 
hunt food for the family.” 

For a long time they found no coral mush- 
rooms. They looked on every fallen beech 
they passed and Ralph made many short 
dashes into the woods after things which 
proved to be only scraps of paper and frag- 
ments of birch-bark whitened by sun and 
rain. 

“O Ralph,” said Jack at last. “Why don’t 
you look more carefullyer before you run 
after things? You’re just like the grocer’s 
yellow dog when he thinks there are chip- 
munks. around. He just chases and chases 
and chases, but he doesn’t catch a thing.” 

“ Huh,” retorted Ralph with perfect good 
nature. “You are just like those starving 


Mushrooms 


235 


people in India who would n’t pick up the 
corn that fell from the relief trains because 
they had never found out what corn was.” 

“Well,” said Mrs. Miller, wishing to stop 
the discussion before it became ill-natured, 
“if we wait for our supper until we find 
more coral mushrooms, we may all be like 
the Arctic explorers who got hungry enough 
to eat the tops of their boots.” 

“ Not truly ? ” said Jack. “ Nobody ever 
got truly so hungry as that. Why, they 
could n’t ! Nobody could eat boots, you 
know.” 

“ Indeed, people do get hungry enough 
for that,” replied his mother. “You have 
no idea how it feels to be as hungry as 
a great many poor people are right in our 
own country, and as for the famines in other 
lands — ” She looked at her own rosy, happy 
children and recalled the pictures she had 
seen of starving little ones in India and Fin- 
land and could say nothing more for a few 
minutes. 

“ Tell us about them,” begged the children. 


236 The Millers at Pencroft 

Mrs. Miller told them something of differ- 
ent famous famines, and then sang them the 
old Irish song in which the starving girl begs 
her mother for just three grains of corn to eat. 

“Sweet corn or pop-corn or pig corn ?” 
asked Ralph, who was very much impressed. 

“ Pig corn, I think,” said Mrs. Miller. 

“Well, I’m glad of that,” he remarked. 
“ It has the biggest kernels, you know.” 

“ 1 don’t think that would be very much, 
even if they were as big as— as big as — 
cherries,” said Jack. “ Three kernels would 
just sort of shake around in the bottom 
of your stomach, or else get stuck up in one 
of the corners.” 

“1 tell you what,” said Ralph, the one 
who was always trying experiments, “ you 
let us have just three kernels of corn to eat 
sometime, and then we ’ll know just how 
much it feels like inside of us.” 

“Yes, do. Mother,” said Helen. “Some- 
time when we ’re not really hungry.” 

“No,” suggested Jack. “Let us try it 
sometime when we are really hungry, and 


Mushrooms 


237 


then after we Ve seen how it would feel, we 
can go on and eat the rest of our dinner, or 
supper, or whatever it is.” 

“ I will try it,” said Mrs. Miller, with a 
good deal of meaning in her voice. “ 1 will 
try it the very next time that I hear one of 
you say, ‘ Is this all we have for supper ? 1 
don’t call this very much.’ But the child 
who finds just three grains of corn on his 
plate will have nothing else to eat until the 
next meal.” 

Everybody laughed, and Ralph hung his 
head. He remembered too well having said 
precisely those words the night before when 
he sat down to the table. 

“ I tell you one thing,” he said, with the 
slight toss of the head that his mother knew 
so well. “ I won’t be the one to get the 
first three kernels.” 

“Neither will 1,” said jack. 

“Neither will 1,” said Helen. 

They were now passing along where no 
beech trees grew and so had more time to 
talk. 


238 The Millers at Pencroft 

“Mother,” said Jack suddenly, “are we 
rich ?” 

“Certainly not,” replied his mother. 
“What made you ask that?” 

“The boys at home say we are,” said 
Ralph, not waiting for jack to answer. 
“Sammy Robinson says Father and Mr. 
Peters are the richest men in Winthrop.” 

“ I should say that Mr. Peters is the only 
rich man in Winthrop,” said Mrs. Miller. 
“ Father is not rich.” 

“ Is he poor ? ” asked both boys anxiously, 
while Helen, who was not interested in 
riches, ran ahead to the garden. 

“No,” replied Mrs. Miller. “He is not 
poor. He has as much money as we need 
for our way of living, and we do not have 
to worry about business matters.” 

“Don’t you wish he was rich?” asked 
Ralph, who seemed quite disappointed to 
find that Sammy was mistaken. 

“Not at all,” said his mother cheerfully. 
“ 1 think it would be very stupid to be rich.” 

“ Stupid !” exclaimed Ralph. “Stupid! 


Mushrooms 


239 


Why if we were rich we could buy every- 
thing we wanted.” 

“ Yes,” said his mother, “that is the very 
stupidest part of it, because half the fun of 
getting a new thing comes from having had 
to wait and save money a while for it. You 
just notice and see if it is n’t so.” 

“Mother-r-r! ” called Helen. “Mother-r-r! 
Come here ! 1 ’ve found some ! I ’ve found 
some ! ” 

There was no more talking of money 
then, for Helen had found a beech log with 
many great tufts of coral mushroom on it, 
all fresh and creamy white with once in a 
while a delicate pink-tipped one. The thin- 
bladed sharp knife was slipped under them 
and only the roots left. Such beautiful 
things and all grown so quickly from the 
dingy and decaying wood ! 

After this they found other logs with coral 
mushrooms and one with a great mass of 
young oyster mushrooms, which they left 
for another day. Around them were hun- 
dreds and thousands of the stool-shaped 


240 The Millers at Pencroft 

ones, but these Mrs. Miller would not let 
the children pick. “ If you were squirrels,” 
she said, “ I might trust you, for the squir- 
rels know what it is safe to nibble, and so 
do the snails, but little boys and girls belong 
to a people who have lived so long in houses 
that they cannot tell such things without 
books and pictures to help them. We will 
buy a book and study before we try the 
other kinds.” 

“Indians know,” said Ralph, as they 
turned toward home. “ Let ’s pretend that 
we are Indians now just for fun.” 

So they stalked through the woods in 
single file, seldom speaking to each other, 
and answering in grunts and short, jerky sen- 
tences. They had learned to walk flat-footed 
when they first came to Pencroft, so they 
made less noise in stepping on twigs and 
were less likely to stumble and pitch on the 
uneven ground. Now they tried to toe 
straight ahead, so as not to hook into the 
loose branches and roots beside their path. 
They became so interested in this that they 


Mushrooms 


241 


did not see another party coming toward 
them until they met face to face. 

Three squaws were there, one with her 
pappoose in a muskimoot on her back. The 
muskimoot is a stout bag woven of bass- 
wood fibre, you know, and used by the 
squaws for carrying babies, potatoes, or 
almost anything for long distances. It is 
supported by a broad strap that crosses the 
forehead. 

“ Bo-jo’, ” said Mrs. Miller and the three 
little Millers. 

“Bo-Jo’,” replied the squaws, as they 
stepped aside to let the white people pass. 

just behind the squaws was Aurelia — Au- 
relia with a pail over her arm and some 
coral mushrooms in it, and she looked very 
queer when she saw them. Aurelia had 
not forgotten saying that she would cook 
all the mushrooms they wanted, but that 
she was afraid to eat them. 

“Well, Aurelia,” said Mrs. Miller, “what 
have you in that pail ? ” 

“Guess I might as well own up,” said 


242 The Millers at Pencroft 

Aurelia. “After you folks was gone I fried 
just a mite of what that Injin give you an’ 
ate it. Land, but it was good 1 An’ so 
when I got my dishes dried I thought I 
might as well see if 1 could n’t find some 
more. Suppose you ask Mrs. Vanderlip an’ 
her daughter in to supper. Their hired girl 
wants to go to town the worst way, an’ 
that ’ll let her out o’ gettln’ supper for them. ” 


CHAPTER XVI 


AN INVITATION TO TEA 

IT began to rain one Sunday afternoon, just 
' as Mr. and Mrs. Miller and the boys re- 
turned from church in the village, and it 
rained all night. The next morning it was 
still raining, and the little Millers had to give 
up all thought of playing on the beach or in 
the woods. The Indians had not come to 
finish their work and everything was different 
from what the children had wanted it to be. 
Their only comfort was the thought that 
this would make mushrooms grow, and 
they could have some more of them for sup- 
per by Wednesday or Thursday. 

“Tell you what let ’s do,” said Jack. 
“ Let ’s Just whittle boats all day. Let ’s 
make stacks of them, so we won’t be always 
wishing we had one when we have n’t.” 


243 


244 The Millers at Pencroft 

“All right, sir ! ” agreed Ralph. “All dif- 
ferent sizes, too.” 

Helen was soon fixed cosily in a packing- 
box on the big back porch, with a smaller 
box for a chair and quantities of burlap for a 
bed for herself and her dolls. Near her sat 
the boys whittling on their boats. Jack’s 
knife did not work very well, probably be- 
cause it had lain out in the damp sand of 
the beach overnight, and he soon stopped 
whittling and went to making sails. In a 
few minutes Ralph threw down his knife. 

“ Let ’s uncover part of the tank and stick 
our heads in,” said Helen. “ I like to do 
that when the water is pouring in from the 
roof, ’cause it scares me so.” 

“ So do I,” said jack. “ It makes me feel 
so sort of caterpillary down my back.” 

“ It does n’t make me feel that way,” re- 
marked Ralph. “ It just makes me feel as 
though I was away down inside of some- 
thing and could n’t get out — only I know I 
can.” 

The boys tugged and pushed at the loose 


An Invitation to Tea 


245 


boards which still covered the great tank in 
the corner of the porch, until they had it 
about a third open. They found it so full 
that it would hardly echo at all. 

“ Boost me, please,” said Helen, who could 
barely get her fingers over the edge by 
standing on tiptoe. 

“1 ’ll get a box for you to stand on,” said 
Ralph, and he and Jack pushed and tugged 
until the packing-box stood beside the tank. 
Then Helen was boosted onto that and the 
boys sprang up beside her. There was not 
much to hear, and they soon tired of blow- 
ing on the water to make ripples. Ralph 
suggested making boats with propellers to 
sail in the tank, and then there was a rush 
into the house for permission and material. 

Mr. Miller came out and took all the 
covering from the tank, while Mrs. Miller 
hunted up half a dozen rubber bands which 
she had around small parcels. Of course 
you know how they made their boats. 
They whittled them from shingles, drove 
two nails on the under side, one in front of 


246 The Millers at Pencroft 

the other and about four inches apart, then 
they slipped a rubber band over each pair 
of nails and went to find their propellers. 
These they made from some inch-wide 
strips of tin which they found in the kindling- 
pile. A strip about two inches long was 
fixed by bending down the right-hand cor- 
ner of the upper end, and bending up the 
left-hand corner of the lower end, and then 
the tin was put between the two sides of 
the rubber band and the band twisted. 

When they had three boats ready for use, 
the children got up on the packing-box once 
more and began to sail them. A boat with 
the rubber well twisted would go clear across 
the tank, and that very speedily. Indeed, if 
it could be quickly turned and headed the 
other way it would often go across and 
back without having the rubber retwisted. 

“You go over on the other side. Jack,” 
said Ralph, “and then we can send them 
back and forth like the bay steamers.” 

“All right,” said jack as he scrambled 
down. “You send them up the bay and 1 


An Invitation to Tea 247 

will send them down, and Helen can help 
be the whistles.” 

So Jack managed to look over the other 
side of the tank by standing on a stick of 
wood, and sent several boats while in that 
position. 

“ Wait a minute,” he said at last. “ 1 ’m 
too wobbly here. 1 ’m going to sit on the 
edge of the tank.” 

“ You can ’t,” remarked Ralph. “ It ’s too 
narrow.” 

“ Yes 1 can,” persisted jack. “ It ’s pretty 
narrow, but 1 can sort of wiggle round once 
in a while and stand it.” 

He got up there and stood the discomfort 
for the sake of the fun, and everything went 
well until the three boats met in the middle 
of the tank instead of passing. There they 
remained, pushing away at each other and 
fast losing all the force of the rubber bands. 
Jack leaned over to set them free, lost his 
balance, and fell in backward, carrying two 
of the boats down with him and splashing 
so much water up into the faces of Ralph 


248 The Millers at Pencroft 

and Helen that for an instant they could 
neither see nor call for help. 

When Jack came to the top he managed 
to catch hold of Ralph’s hand and then of 
the edge of the tank, but the water was so 
deep that he could not keep his head out 
by standing on the floor of the tank. Jack 
spluttered and gasped, Ralph called for his 
father, Helen shouted for her mother, and 
Aurelia, being the nearest to the porch, was 
the first to get out. 

“Sakes alive!” she exclaimed. “Well, it 
takes a Miller boy to drown on dry land ! I 
should think Jack would have got enough 
of that sort of thing that time he was on 
Sprague’s Lake. What on earth ” 

Here Mr. Miller, who had been in the sit- 
ting-room, rushed out, followed by Mrs. 
Miller, who had been upstairs. Aurelia was 
wiping the faces of all three children on her 
apron, and scolding and comforting them 
with the same breath. 

“You ought not to say that, Aurelia 
Shackleton,” Jack was wailing, “this isn’t 


An Invitation to Tea 249 

dry land. It ’s rained ever since yesterday 
afternoon and it’s wet land— just sopping 
wet. Besides, I did n’t d-d-drown.” 

Mrs. Miller laughed outright, and then the 
others began to see the funny side of the 
affair. Mr. Miller helped jack to scramble 
over the side of the tank and down to the 
floor, where he stood with arms outstretched 
dripping and shivering. Some of his gar- 
ments were stripped off from him as he 
stood there, and then his mother went up 
the back stairs with him to rub him off and 
help him into dry clothing. 

“There’s always something to be glad 
about,” she remarked. “ I’ m glad only one 
child fell in this time. I declare the supply 
of clean waists and trousers is down so low 
that the very next boy to get dirty or wet 
between now and Wednesday will have to go 
to bed and stay there until the ironing is 
done.” 

“I didn’t fall in,” said Ralph in a very 
polite and thoughtful tone, “but I got a 
little wet when Jack fell in. Not much you 


250 The Millers at Pencroft 

know. My waist is the wettest — that and 
my trousers, and I guess it has soaked 
through to the things underneath.” 

“ Mercy on us! ” exclaimed Aurelia. “ I 
should say you was wet! Now you just 
leave those boats be an’ come in where it ’s 
warm, till I can find you some dry duds. 
Are you all right, Helen ? ” 

“Yes, I am all right,” said that small 
maiden cheerfully, “but I fink perhaps I am 
soaked froo my skin too! ” 

From that time on the little Millers had 
to stay indoors. They lay on the rug and 
watched the crackling fire in the fireplace, 
they played checkers, bean-bags, tiddledy- 
winks, cut out paper dolls, made cats’- 
cradles, and even got a variety by sliding 
down the front stairs head foremost. They 
had just reached the point of wondering 
how long it would be before dinner, when 
Aurelia came in with a note which had been 
brought over by Delia, Mrs. Vanderlip’s 
maid. It was addressed to Ralph, Jack, and 
Helen Miller. 


An Invitation to Tea 


251 


“ My dear little neighbors : ” the note read. 
“ My daughter and 1 should be very glad to 
have you take tea with us this evening at 
six o’clock. If you can do so, please come 
over at about half past five. Sincerely yours, 
Emily Vanderlip.” 

“ Why, think of it,” exclaimed Ralph, 
who had read the note while Jack and Helen 
looked over his shoulders. “ Think of it, 
we’re asked to supper by a grown-up, and 
without our father and mother! ” 

“ May we go ? ” asked the three little 
Millers together. 

“Certainly,” said Mrs. Miller, “but you 
must write your own acceptance.” 

“You ’ll tell me what to say, won’t you ? ” 
asked Ralph, on whom this duty fell. 

“Yes,” replied his mother, and then the 
others sat around very quiet and excited 
while the note of acceptance was made 
ready for Aurelia to carry back. When that 
was safely out of the way they were free to 
talk over this wonderful and unexpected 
kindness of Mrs. Vanderlip. 


252 The Millers at Pencroft 

“ 1 wonder what we shall have to eat,” said 
jack, and then he feared that it was hardly 
kind to talk so freely before his parents of 
joys in which they could have no share. 
“ Poor Mother! ” he added, reaching out to 
pat her hand. “ It ’s too bad you are n’t in- 
vited too. You ask Aurelia to get you an 
unusually good supper, and if we have cakes 
with candy on them, I ’ll bring you home 
the candy from mine.” 

After that the day might seem long, but 
it was never dull, for when other things 
grew uninteresting there was always the 
supper-party to discuss. Ralph thought 
they would have ham sandwiches, jack 
thought it more likely that the sandwiches 
would be made of peanut butter, and Helen 
hoped, yet hardly dared believe, that there 
would be floating island custard. 

At twenty minutes past five the children 
were ready to start, and after that how 
slowly the hands of the clock seemed to 
move 1 Mrs. Miller insisted that they should 
wait until exactly half past and they sat 


An Invitation to Tea 253 

around in very stiff and proper positions, 
the boys in fresh linen suits and Helen in 
spotless white. 

“1 hope we ’ll all have good manners at 
table,” sighed Jack. “ What 1 ’m most afraid 
of is eating my bread and butter bottom side 
up. It Just seems to flop right over on its 
way up to my mouth.” 

“ 1 think you will do all right,” said Mr. 
Miller. “ You certainly know how to behave 
well, and you ought not to feel at all uncom- 
fortable. It is no more important to have 
fine manners for your friends than it is for 
your father and mother.” 

“We know that, because you love us 
best,” said Ralph, “but somehow 1 do seem 
to mind it more away from home.” 

“1 will tell you what Mrs. Vanderlip told 
me,” said Mrs. Miller. “1 think it is so 
funny. She said that when her daughter 
was a little girl and they went out to tea, 
she always told her that there was one care- 
less thing she must not do — she must not 
pull her plate off into her lap or onto the 


254 The Millers at Pencroft 

floor. She would rather not have her do 
anything rude or unmannerly, but that she 
just could not have her pull off her plate.” 

jack looked more cheerful and Ralph 
laughed outright. “We ’ll promise not to 
pull off our plates,” he said. “Whatever 
else we do we will not pull off our plates.” 

Then the rubbers were put on, the largest 
umbrella raised, and the little Millers picked 
their way from the porch of Pencroft to the 
porch of the Vanderlip cottage next door. 
Miss Vanderlip met them at the steps and 
helped them lower the umbrella. She would 
have taken off Helen’s rubbers if Ralph had 
not already done that. Mrs. Vanderlip was 
in the sitting-room and had a little circle of 
chairs in front of the fireplace for them. 

“ Did you get very wet on your way 
over ? ” she asked. 

“Not very,” said Ralph. 

Jack and Helen were looking toward the 
dining-room where everything was very 
gay looking and pretty. Helen suddenly 
remembered that well-behaved people do 


An Invitation to Tea 


255 


not stare, so she turned sharply around and 
said, “Jack got wet froo his skin this 
morning.” 

“ Did he ? ” said Mrs. Vanderlip. “ I hope 
he did not remain wet long.” 

“1 fell into the tank,” said Jack. “We 
were sailing boats in it, you know. They 
had propellers on and were just scooting. I 
reached too far and tumbled in.” 

“ That was too bad,” remarked Miss Van- 
derlip. ‘ ‘ What happened next ? ” 

“Oh, we fished him out,” said Ralph. 
“ Helen and I hollered, and Jack held onto 
me, and Father helped him over the edge, 
and Mother got him into some dry things.” 

“Did n’t Aurelia feel somewhat neglected?” 
asked Miss Vanderlip. “ It sounds to me as 
though she were the only one left out.” 

“ said Jack gravely. “ I mean no. 

She scolded me and gave me a drink of pep- 
mint tea as soon as 1 got dressed.” 

Delia was walking to and fro between 
the kitchen and the dining-room, and a de- 
lightful smell came through the open door. 


256 The Millers at Pencroft 

Ralph got up and went over to a window. 
He said he wanted to see if it had stopped 
raining, but Jack and Helen thought he did 
it to get a peep at the dining-table as he 
passed the door. However, there were pic- 
tures to see and an interesting puzzle that 
Miss Vanderlip had found in Italy, so it was 
almost six o’clock before they realized it. 
Delia said “Supper is served,” in her soft, 
Irish voice, and Mrs. Vanderlip led the way 
to the dining-room. 

In the centre of the table was a beautiful sil- 
ver candelabrum with five red candles and by 
each plate was a big red tissue-paper flower 
enclosing a tiny round box of salted almonds. 
At each place lay a card with a water-color 
sketch on it. Miss Vanderlip was an artist 
and instead of writing the names of her 
guests she drew their pictures, and let them 
find their places in that way. 

“ Oh, is n’t this funny 1 ” giggled jack, as 
he saw a picture of himself lifting the foot- 
ball at the circus. 

“ Look at mine,” said Ralph, as he held 


An Invitation to Tea 


257 


up a card showing him running a toy 
engine. 

“ I fink mine is the nicest,” remarked 
Helen. “ It is igzackly like my new dolly.” 
Her card showed her hugging a doll tightly 
to her. 

Mrs. Vanderlip’s showed her knitting by 
the fireplace and Miss Vanderlip’s was a 
sketch of a young woman sitting at an easel. 

What did they have to eat ? They had 
creamed chicken and delicious little fluffy 
masses of mashed potato all browned on top. 
They had fine shaky red jelly and dainty little 
bread and butter sandwiches, small dishes 
of sweet cherries that ripen late in that 
northern country, and then (oh, wonderful 
and exciting), they had Russian tea, with the 
tea left out, poured at the table from Miss 
Vanderlip’s samovar. When they saw that 
done, and noticed the tiny blue flame burn- 
ing so cheerfully under the pretty tea-kettle, 
they felt that the best had surely come, but 
they were mistaken. The last and the best 
of all were cream puffs. 


258 The Millers at Pencroft 

Have you ever eaten cream puffs ? They 
are all ragged and crispy outside, you know, 
but when you cut into them you find them 
full of a delicious thick cream. The little 
Millers had never eaten them, so it was not 
strange that they showed surprise when the 
cream gushed out. In fact they had quite 
forgotten that they were guests or that it 
was a party, and chattered away as freely 
as they would at home. Ralph was the first 
to find the cream and he said “Jiminy” in a 
whisper when he found it. Then he blushed 
a little and kept still, but it had reminded 
Jack of something. 

“Did you ever pull off your plate. Miss 
Vanderlip ? ” said he. 

“ Did 1 ever do what ? ” said she. 

“ Did you ever pull your plate off onto 
the floor?” he repeated. “When you 
went away to supper, and your mother told 
you not to ? ” 

Miss Vanderlip laughed. “Not onto the 
floor,” she said, “ and 1 think 1 never pulled 
it into my lap, but 1 always feared that I 


An Invitation to Tea 259 

might. I always thought that if I did I 
should crawl under the table at once, so that 
1 could not see people look at me.” 

Then everybody had a second cup of tea 
to be sipped from the interesting little tea- 
spoons which Miss Vanderlip had bought 
in Europe, spoons with lions or angels or 
houses on the handles, and then the supper 
was over. The party sat around the fire- 
place for half an hour afterward and played 
a few simple games until the clock struck 
seven, when the guests jumped up and said 
that they must go. 

“ Will your coach turn into a pumpkin if 
you wait ? ” asked Mrs. Vanderlip. 

“ Our what turn into a what ? ” said Jack. 

“ Your coach turn into a pumpkin and 
your horses into mice?” said Mrs. Vanderlip. 

‘ ‘ Oh, like Cinderella when the clock struck 
twelve,” said jack with a giggle. 

Ralph took up the joke. “They are mice 
now,” he said, “deer-mice. The woods 
are full of them. Guess 1 ’ll help the prin- 
cess put on her glass slippers,” and he 


26 o 


The Millers at Pencroft 


stepped to the door and brought in Helen’s 
stubby little rubbers. 

They said good-by to the ladies and told 
them how they had enjoyed their visit, and 
then they turned to the door. Mrs. Vander- 
lip held the big lamp to the window to light 
them over to Pencroft, and Miss Vanderlip 
stepped onto the porch to raise the big um- 
brella and see them started. 

“ You need n’t put it up,” said Jack. “ It 
is n’t raining much now. 1 ’ll carry it under 
my arm and we will just scoot.” 

“Very well, good night,” said Miss Van- 
derlip, as the three little figures disappeared 
in the darkness. 

“Good night,” was the answer which 
came back. “We have had a lovely time.” 


CHAPTER XVII 


THE POW-WOW 

L ate in August people began to talk of 
closing their cottages and returning to 
their town homes, but Mrs. Miller declared 
that they would stay until the Friday before 
school began. Mr. Miller had gone home 
once for a few days and returned to Pencroft 
full of news. The Flannigan boys had a 
baby sister, Mrs. Hathaway was very feeble, 
Sammy Robinson’s home had burned in the 
night, Robert Black had a little cousin from 
India visiting him, and — the greatest news 
of all — Mr. Miller had bought several lots in 
Winthrop and was planning to build a new 
home on them as soon as possible. 

Why, there was so much to talk about that 
the children hardly played at all on the day 
of their father’s return to Pencroft. And 


262 


The Millers at Pencroft 


after that they were almost impatient to 
leave Trelago Point until next summer. 
They feared that the little girl from India 
would not be at Dr. Black’s in September, 
they wanted to see the Flannigan baby be- 
fore it grew too much, they wanted to dig 
in the ruins of the Robinson house and fish 
out melted nails and things like that from 
the ashes ; and most of all they wanted to 
look at the ground where the new home 
was to stand. 

Aurelia was also impatient to go. “ I 
declare,” she said, “ I don’t see how old 
Mrs. Hathaway is goin’ to manage. I s’pose 
her son ’s away ’most all day, although, land 
knows, he’s handy enough when he is at 
home. An’ neat ain’t the name for him. I 
can see their house from my kitchen win- 
dow, an’ there has n’t been a time sence they 
moved in that he ’s gone into the house 
without wipin’ off his shoes. I ’m goin’ to 
bake ’em a good mess 0 ’ beans as soon as 
ever we get home, an’ soon ’s we ’ve got our 
own house clean, 1 ’ll go over some after- 


The Pow-wow 263 

noon an’ red things up for Mrs. Hath- 
away.” 

Aurelia left the room, and Helen remarked, 
“They like Aurelia, too, don’t they? 1 
heard Mrs. Hathaway tell her they ’d miss 
her like anything.” 

“ Anybody would miss Aurelia,” said Mrs. 
Miller. “Now run out-of-doors while Father 
and 1 talk business.” 

They did talk business, plans for the new 
home, and all sorts of interesting things, but 
before they began on those matters Mrs. 
Miller had said, “ Do you suppose that Fred 
Hathaway is interested in Aurelia ? ” and Mr. 
Miller had replied, “ It looks to me as though 
he would like to marry her if he could.” 

It was not long before the little Millers 
came rushing in with a scrap of birch-bark. 
“ Read it,” they cried, dancing around their 
parents in a state of great excitement. 
“ Please read it quickly and say that we may 
go.” 

It was an invitation for all three to come 
to a “pow-wow” on the hotel lawn the 


264 The Millers at Pencroft 

next week (a pow-wow is an Indian party, 
you know), and wear their “ war-paint and 
feathers.” 

“The hotel clerk brought it over,” said 
Helen, “ and he said it was just for children, 
and we were to dress up like Indians and 
squaws, the real wild ones, not tame like 
Samuel and Matthew. He said some of the 
children at the hotel were going away the 
next day, and this was a sort of good-by 
party. May we go ? ” 

“Yes,” said Mrs. Miller. 

“ And may we dress up ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“ And what may we wear ? ” 

“ Well, that will have to be settled later,” 
said their mother. 

Then there was such a shouting and jump- 
ing that Mrs. Miller told them that they 
might better practise their war-dance out-of- 
doors on the ground. 

The next day they began to plan what 
they should wear. Luckily they had brought 
their moccasins North with them, so they had 


The Pow-wow 


265 


that much to begin upon, and Mrs. Vanderlip 
gave them a feather duster which the mice 
had nibbled, so they were sure of plenty of 
feathers for head-dresses. The mice had not 
hurt the feathers, you know, only the paste 
and leather where they were fastened to- 
gether. 

“We’re all right for our heads and our 
feet,” said Ralph, “ but there ’s a lot of us in 
between with just common clothes." 

“ Don’t you worry, my son,” said his 
mother, “we have four days in which to 
get three costumes ready, and we will dress 
our ‘ one little, two little, three little Injuns ’ 
all right for the pow-wow.” 

“ Where ’ll we get our beads ? ” asked 
Helen, “jack says that wild Indians always 
wear beads.” 

“ They do, too,” interrupted Jack, “just 
loads and loads of beads. I wish you ’d let 
us wear some of yours.” 

“ Mine?” said Mrs. Miller. “ Wear amber 
and Roman pearls to prance around the 
woods ? Never 1 ” 


266 


The Millers at Pencroft 


“We’ll just have to go without them,” 
grumbled Ralph. “Ernest says there isn’t 
a single bead over at the village — not a 
single one.” 

“ If you go without them it will be your 
own fault,” remarked Mrs. Miller, “for there 
are thousands and thousands of beautiful 
ones growing in the woods and on the 
beach.” 

“ Beads growing ! ” exclaimed the three 
children, and they stared at her as though 
they feared she had gone crazy. Jack was 
lying on his back before the fireplace and 
happened to look past his mother at a vase 
on the bookshelves. 

“ 1 bet you 1 know ! ” he shouted, spring- 
ing to his feet. “ It ’s berries.” 

“Can’t be,” objected Ralph. “They’d 
sqush.” 

“I don’t fink bearberries sqush,” said 
Helen gravely. “ Louise and 1 play marbles 
with them.” 

“ Bearberries would be dandy,” agreed 
jack. “They ’re such a bright red, and 


The Pow-wow 


267 


then there are doll’s-eyes for white with a 
little black speck on each one, and Solomon’s 
seal for kind of blue-green, and then there ’s 
another kind in the wood that are a bright 
blue, but 1 don’t know their name.” 

“Those are just what 1 meant,” said Mrs. 
Miller, “ and you can get several shades of 
Solomon’s seal, for they are just turning 
from green to bluish black.” 

There were berry hunts every day after 
that, and in the cottage curtains, cushion- 
covers, and even an old hammock were 
changed into costumes. 

“It is the end of the season and 1 shall 
not put the curtains up again,” said Mrs. 
Miller, when her husband begged her not to 
make so much work for herself. “ The chil- 
dren have had a happy time all summer and 
have really been very good and thoughtful 
of us. Now let them have one glorious gay 
time at the pow-wow and then we will re- 
turn to Winthrop, school-life, and the cares 
of home.” 

When the afternoon oi the party came 


268 


The Millers at Pencroft 


Mr. Miller helped by staining faces and 
hands a real Indian color, and Aurelia stood 
by to hand pins and threaded needles to Mrs. 
Miller as she dressed them, for some of the 
garments had to be sewed on. 

The boys wore long trousers of brown 
cambric with slashed fringes on the side, 
and a queer upper garment of clean burlap on 
which their fether had painted all sorts of 
quaint pictures in red and black. Around 
their heads they wore bands of turkey-red 
calico, above which bristled the feathers 
from Mrs. Vanderlip’s old duster. In their 
hands they carried real Indian bows and 
arrows which they got from the village 
store, and on their feet were the moccasins 
which had been sent them from Trelago Point 
the year before. As for beads — they had at 
least five strings apiece of varying lengths 
and colors. 

Helen was dressed principally in a yellow 
hammock. It had been left hanging on the 
porch overnight soon after the family came 
to Pencroft and the squirrels and mice had 



Mrs. Miller dressed Helen. 







. The Pow-wow 


269 


carried away parts of it for their nests. Now 
it was neatly draped around the princess 
Wa-wa-ta-sig and held in place by a couple 
of old brass ornaments that had once sup- 
ported the princess’s great-grandmother’s 
parlor curtains, and now covered the holes 
which the mice had eaten in the hammock. 

The princess’s hair was parted from her 
forehead clear back to her neck and braided 
neatly on each side. The braids hung for- 
ward over each shoulder and were wound 
tightly with red yarn for about three inches 
above the tassels of flowing hair in which 
they ended. The yellow hammock fringe 
hung over her moccasins and she had strings 
of berry-beads around her neck and on her 
plump bare arms. 

“We are going now,” said Wa-wa-ta-sig 
when the last stitch was taken in her 
drapery. 

“ Wonder if we can act like Indians ? ” 
said Jack. 

“ Humph,” remarked Aurelia. “You boys 
act like wild Injins a dozen times a day 


The Millers at Pencroft 


270 

when there ain’t any call for you to, an’ 1 
guess you won’t find it extry hard to do 
enough whoopin’ to-day to match your 
clothes.” 

“ Let’s scalp her, Jack,” said Ralph, and 
they started for Aurelia in such a fierce way 
that she pretended to be dreadfully fright- 
ened and ran to her room, where they heard 
her laughing after she had turned the key in 
the door. 

Then jack reminded his brother to call 
him by his Indian name, and Shob-wa- 5 M#^, 
Es-qua-Wf, and Wa-wa-ta-sig plodded off 
through the woods with Blackie and Butter- 
cup clawing at the fringe of Wa-wa-ta-sig’s 
robe and two red squirrels leaping from 
branch to branch over their heads. 

There were about a dozen children staying 
at the hotel, and these were waiting to 
welcome the children from the cottages. 
There were war-whoops and wild prancings 
when they met, and the new-comers were 
taken to a rude wigwam where doll pap- 
pooses hung from the near-by trees and 


The Pow-wow 


271 


given tin cups of lemonade from a big 
pail. 

There were all sorts of merry out-of-door 
sports, from a peanut hunt under the trees to 
a game of hare and hounds, in which Ernest, 
or 0-ge-mah, was given a good start and 
ran wherever he chose through the woods, 
scattering bits of white paper as he ran. 
The others, pretending that they were 
hounds chasing a hare, followed, tracking 
him by the paper, until they got back to the 
hotel lawn and found him hidden under the 
seat of one of the summer houses. 

While the Indians were resting after their 
chase, two of the hotel waitresses came out 
with big baskets on their arms, and the lady 
who was managing the party, the landlord’s 
wife, had her guests sit around in a big 
circle on the grass. 

“What are you going to give us now ? ” 
shouted one of the hotel children, who was 
too much excited to be polite. 

“Oh, we are going to give you some 
food,” said the landlord gravely. “Wouldn’t 


272 The Millers at Pencroft 

you like a little lunch of raw dog or jerked 
buffalo ? ” 

The older children laughed and knew it 
was all a joke, but Wa-wa-ta-sig was wor- 
ried about Watch, and feared that he had 
been caught and killed. She could think of 
no other dog in the neighborhood, and the 
tears filled her eyes and overflowed onto 
her yellow robe before any one noticed that 
she was weeping. Then one of the wait- 
resses came and lowered the basket of 
sandwiches for her to see, while 0-ge-mah 
on the one side and Es-qua-^rY on the other 
took out sandwiches for her and opened 
them up to show her that they were filled 
with peanut butter only. 

When supper was over, the musicians 
from the hotel came onto the porch and 
played for what they called a war-dance. 
It was more nearly that than anything else, 
for they made it up as they went along, 
quite as the real Indians do, and shuffled, 
jerked, stamped, leaped, and sang, just as 
they chose, moving around all the while in 


The Pow-wov/ 


273 


a large circle. When one became tired he 
sat down under a tree, and when he was 
rested he arose and began dancing again. 

At last all stopped to watch the afternoon 
boat, which was late that day, and then they 
found that it was time for the party to end. 
The little Millers were now tired enough to 
stop pretending, and they walked back to Pen- 
croft very quietly, following the beach road 
around the bend of the Point and watching 
the beautiful white steamboat as it glided 
along on the quiet water of the bay. The 
last rays of the setting sun fell on her gleam- 
ing white sides, and beyond her they saw 
great masses of clouds, white, rosy-pink, 
and violet, in the sunset glow. These were 
reflected on the glassy water of the bay, and 
the air was so clear that the trees on the 
farther shore showed sharply against the sky. 

“ Is n’t Trelago Point the most beautiful 
place?” exclaimed Ralph. “And we ’re 
going back to Winthrop the day after to- 
morrow ! ” 

“1 want to go,” said jack. “1 want to 


274 The Millers at Pencroft 

see about our new house, and find out what 
my new teacher is like, and do lots of inter- 
esting things. And then I want to come 
back next year.” 

“So do I,” murmured Helen sleepily, for 
she was very tired. “ 1 want to come up 
here and have a lot of fun, and go home and 
have a lot of fun, and come up here again 
and have a lot of fun, and go home again 
and have a lot of fun and just keep right on 
doing that way.” 

“Why,” said Ralph, standing still in his sur- 
prise, “1 never thought of it before, but that ’s 
exactly what we are going to do, is n’t it ? ” 

“ ’Course it is,” said Jack. “Thought you 
knew that. And we ’ll just be growing up 
all the tim'e we ’re doing it. First thing we 
know we ’ll all be in college. Good-by,” he 
called to the children behind them who were 
going into their cottages for the night, and 
Ralph and Helen joined with him, “Good- 
by ! Good-by ! ” 


THE END. 


Among the Pond People 

, By CLARA D. PIERSON 

With 12 full-page illustrations by F. C. Gordon 

lamo, 222 pages, cloth, gilt top • • $i.oo net 

This last book of Mrs. Pierson’s has all the charm of the 
earlier volumes. The adventures of Mother Eel, the Playful 
Muskrat, the Snappy Snapping Turtle, and the other Pond 
People, will be eagerly followed by children, whether they 
are naturalists or ordinary readers. The fact that one does 
not continually feel that she is writing for the purpose of in- 
structing the young, gives Mrs. Pierson her hold on so many 
boys and girls. The books teach a great many lessons, but 
one does not feel that the author is lying in wait to enlighten 
the unwary youngster. 

“ In it, as in the old Greek comedies, the frogs have a voice 
and speak their little orations and crack their jokes and play 
their pranks. The ‘ science ’ is elementary but the entertain- 
ment genuine, and the little people to whom it is read will 
ever cherish a kindly interest in the denizens of the ponds 
and their floral homes and environments.” — Interior, 

“ One lays down the book with quickened sympathy for 
everything that crawls and creeps and swims.” — Critic. 

“ The Pond People are quite as real and as fascinating as 
were the Meadow People and the Barnyard People of pre- 
vious books. They are genuine stories, full of a humor that 
will appeal to boys and girls, yet cleverly conveying infor- 
mation about the frogs, turtles, minnows, etc., and often sug- 
gesting a moral in a delicate manner which no child could 
resent. ”. — Congregationalist. 

“ In its way the work is very daintily done.” — Churchman. 


E. P. DUTTON & CO., Publishers 


31 West 23d Street 


New York 


''Many a mother and teacher will accord a vote 
of thanks to the author . ' ' 



Among the Meadow People. 

STORIES OP FIELD LIFE, WRITTEN FOR THE LITTLE ONES. 

By CLARA D. PIERSON. 

Illustrated by F. C. Gordon. 

New edition, i2mo, 194 pages, cloth, . , $1.00 net 

“ One of the daintiest and in many ways most attractive 
of the many books of nature study which the past year has 
brought forth.” — Boston Advertiser. 

‘ ‘ They are like Mrs. Gatty’s well-known ‘ Parables from 
Nature,’ written in the best of English, as fascinating as fairy 
tales, and yet ‘ really true,’ a quality which we all know 
appeals to the childish mind.” — N. Y. Evangelist. 

“We have seen nothing better for its purpose, and hope 
many a teacher of kindergartens and many a mother may 
avail herself of the privilege of using these little tales.” — 
N. Y. Christian Advocate. 

“ It will be a great advance in the work of education in the 
school and the home when such books are more generally 
utilized.” — Zion's Herald. 

“These charming stories of field life will delight many a 
child of kindergarten age ; and it is safe to say that older 
brothers and sisters will also want to claim a share in them.” 
— Christian Register, 


E. P. DUTTON & CO., Publishers 

31 West 33d Street 


New York 


Among the Night People 

By CLARA D. PIERSON 

Illustrated by F. C. Gordon 

12mo, cloth, $1.00 net 


“ She appeals directly to the child’s sense of humor, and 
her chatty, colloquial style makes her stories of animal life 
the sort of thing to be read aloud as the bedtime hour ap- 
proaches. Raccoons, red foxes, kittens, weasels, deer-mice, 
and other little people of the night come within the scope of 
Mrs. Pierson’s knowledge, and the illustrations to the work, 
by F. C. Gordon, add a great deal to the interest of the vol- 
ume. ” — Boston T ranscript. 

“ With grace and fun and gentleness, with here and there 
a shrewd little lesson in behavior, she describes the ramblings, 
the escapades, the blunders, and the joys of feathered, winged, 
and four-footed wildlings.” — N, Y, Tribune. 

“ These are very brightly written stories of night prowlers 
of all-sorts, two-legged, four-legged, and winged. The musk- 
rat, the red fox, the raccoon, the deer-mouse, the hawk- 
moth, and the humming-bird are some of the people whose 
characteristics are described here. The illustrations by F. C. 
Gordon are as good as the text, which means that they are 
very good indeed .” — Public Opinion. 

“ There is no visible effort to descend to the youthful level 
of intelligence, a trick which youth is so keen to detect and 
so quick to shy at. On the contrary, the dwellers in home 
and woods are here treated with charming directness and con- 
vincing simplicity. Their doings are all made either amusing 
or interesting, and though there is many a moral, that point 
is never forced .” — Philadelphia Press. 


E. P. DUTTON & CO., Publishers 

3i Weit a3d Street - . - - - New York 


Among the Forest People. 

By CLARA D. PIERSON. 

Illustrated by F. C. Gordon. 

i2mo, 220 pages, cloth, gilt top, • . $1.00 net 

“ A most charming series of stories 
for children — yes, and for children of 
all ages, both young and old — is given 
us in the volume before us. No one 
can read these realistic conversations 
of the little creatures of the wood 
without being most tenderly drawn 
toward them, and each story teaches 
many entertaining facts regarding the 
lives and habits of these little people. 

Mothers and teachers must welcome this little book most 
cordially. One cannot speak too strongly in praise of it.” — 
Boston Transcript. 

“ In pleasant story-telling guise, much information in con- 
veyed, and the pictures are a further help. A clever and 
charming book.” — Philadelphia Eve. Telegraph. 

“ Is a book that every child will like to read.” — Hartford 
Courant. 

“The scheme of the book is felicitous, and it is worked 
out with an acute and sympathetic appreciation of methods 
for enlisting the attention and impressing intelligently the 
memory of children. The illustrations are distinctly helpful.” 
— Troy Daily Press. 

‘ ‘ One does not know which to admire most — the intimate 
footing upon which the author stands with the forest folk, or 
the intelligent sympathy she has with sweet child life. She 
seems to be equally in touch with both.” — Churchman, 


E. P. DUTTON & CO., Publishers, 

31 West 33d Street ----- New York. 




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